I previously posted this on the High School Life page, but haven’t gotten a reply yet.
Are there research labs or institutes located and operated at high schools? If so are they clubs or electives?
How would someone go about founding one at their own high school?
There would need to be a research professional involved to head such a lab. Few if any high schools have such people.
If not an actual lab, can there be a school club that does similar projects as a laboratory, only on a much smaller scale?
I’m not sure this is something you can just decide to found. There’s extensive material costs and like mentioned above, you need to have research professionals to head up the lab. There are safety concerns as well.
My high school had research labs, because it was a STEM magnet school. Each senior had to do a year long research project in one of the labs (counted as a class), and there were electives in the labs that were required to get into the senior year lab. We had neuropsych, microelectronics, prototyping, computer systems, robotics, and many others. I spent significant time throughout high school in the microelectronics lab as part of the electronics club, and I took the lab pre-req), but I actually ended up in the computer systems lab my senior year.
If you live nearby a research university - even a small one - one option is to partner with a professor or research professional there to start a research club/group. Do note that many professors are very, very busy and won’t be particularly interested in partnering with a group of high school students, but they may refer you to a postdoc or one of their graduate students who can work with the group. Whatever you decide to do should require minimal commitment from the professionals at the university, but they may be able to provide some guidance.
http://phagesdb.org/phagehunters/
maybe there is a community college, or high school nearby that participates in the PHAGE hunters program