Middle-school teachers conduct the "Plant Game."
On April 17, 20 middle-school teachers from New York City public schools and surrounding counties spent their Saturday at Weill Cornell conducting hands-on labs and attending a lecture organized by the Fellowships and Outreach Office of Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences (WGSMS). The purpose of the workshop, modeled after a similar program for high school teachers, was to update the teachers' knowledge of state-of-the-art techniques and recent findings in biomedical science.
In conducting the Cornell Science Challenge, a mentoring program for seventh-grade students, Fellowships and Outreach director Dr. Brian Turner realized that middle-school students are very excited about science and open to new ideas. "Middle-school kids are so inquisitive and excited about how the world works. They're just natural scientists," said Dr. Turner. Because of his experience with these younger students, Dr. Turner decided to expand the outreach program to cover professional development workshops for middle-school science teachers. "By providing the middle-school teachers with greater knowledge and resources, we ensure that the middle-school kids receive a first-rate science education that is fun and stimulating at the same time," said Dr. Turner.
Kim Lascarides presents the HIV Transmission lab.
The workshop featured four labs and one lecture. The lecture, presented by Dr. Amanda Birnbaum, assistant professor of public health, introduced epidemiology to the teachers, some for the first time. Dr. Birnbaum explained the different studies of epidemiology, and how it can be introduced to middle-school students. Dr. Birnbaum was also interested in collaborating with the teachers to conduct research into middle-school student dietary habits.
Two of the four hands-on labs were conducted by John Chiment, director of the Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers (CIBT) in Ithaca, who was visiting from the Cornell University's Ithaca campus to help with the workshop. Dr. Chiment, a paleontologist, presented a lab on the measurement of trilobite fossils to study their growth patterns. His other lab, entitled "Mastodon Matrix," focused on the feeding habits of the extinct Mastodon.
John Chiment presents the Trilobite lab.
The third lab, presented by graduate students Andrea Brenner and Jeremy Seto, was called "Plant Game." Teachers made growth decisions for simulated plants and the group with the greatest number of flowers at the end of the game won. The last lab, presented by CIBT alumni teacher Kim Lascarides, was an interactive game on HIV transmission. Teachers walked around the room swapping "bodily fluids" and then studied the transmission of "HIV" amongst the group.
At the end of the day, the teachers rated the workshop a 4.9 out of 5 in their evaluations. Many were excited to know when the next workshop was to be held. "There is an obvious need for this type of workshop amongst middle-school teachers in the city," said Dr. Turner. "The WGSMS Outreach Office hopes to be able to provide these services to the middle-school teaching community in the future."
Photos by Dr. Brian Turner.