HHMI Bridge Program for Rising Seniors in High School - 2005 Summary

2005 HHMI Undergraduate Teaching Fellows: Robin French and Adam Sperduto

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Karen Bernd

The goal of Davidson College’s Bridge program is to give at-risk rising seniors in high school a two- week, lab intensive scientific experience both to encourage their continued participation and excitement over advances in biomedical science and to prepare them for the critical analysis, oral presentation, and laboratory skills that they will be expected to master in college courses.

Preparations for the summer session began in November 2004. At that time the program director, Dr. Karen Bernd, contacted the chair of the science department at North Mecklenburg High School, Michael Kowalski, and Rev. Brenda Tapia, Assistant Chaplain at Davidson College and director of the HHMI-supported Love of Learning outreach program to solicit student nominations for the 2005 Bridge Program.

In February 2005, the eighteen nominated high school students were invited to submit application materials. Nine students submitted applications and were accepted to participate in the summer program. The nine students who enrolled in the Bridges Program were:

Riana Frazier
Ryan Frazier
Shaniece Gadson
Raquel Hoover
Stacy Leak
Deston Snead
Roger Stewart
Jordan Watley
Lewis Young

In January 2005, the HHMI teaching internship position was announced to Davidson students. Interested students met with the program director, wrote a personal statement of interest and obtained two letters of recommendation. The application pool contained 6 strong applicants. On April 5th two were selected: Robin French ’07, Biology major and Adam Sperduto ’06, Spanish major, Chemistry minor. Dr. Bernd met with the two interns during April and May to discuss details of the internship and to begin brainstorming goals and objectives for the course.

The teaching internships ran from June 3rd to August 12th. During the initial week, Sperduto and French performed library research on pedagogical approaches and began to establish their goals for the class, both in content, skills and experiences. In the second week the pedagogical reading was supplemented by researching topics and protocols to determine a broad set of experiments that would allow them to achieve their course goals. Weeks three through five were devoted to further refining this list to the five units within the course, namely: Genetics (PCR based genotyping), Genetics (Cancer biology/Ames test), Virology (Communicable disease exercise/Immunization lab), Microbiology (bacteria assessment), and Life Style Contributions to Disease (human physiology lab). Materials were ordered and rough outlines of the protocols were drafted. During weeks six through eight, the interns divided their time between being teaching assistants for the Love of Learning Chemistry teacher (Tues and Thurs afternoons), testing the protocols for the Bridge program, and preparing a lab manual and other materials.

The Bridge Program encompassed the majority of weeks eight through ten. The course includes a number of different skills and experiences. For example, the first seven hours (day 1) included introductions/pre-test/safety instruction, a tour of the facilities, an introduction to genetic profiling, hands-on experience learning to micropipette and perform DNA extraction and PCR reactions, pouring of agarose gels for DNA analysis, and agar plates for future experiments. The second day included more experimentation and attending the Summer Science Symposium. The Summer Science Symposium was a poster session held at the end of the summer research internships. Students from Biology, Psychology, Chemistry, Neuroscience and Genomics programs whose summer research was supported by funding from HHMI, NSF, NIH, Merck-AAAS and other sources presented twenty-two posters. The Bridge program used this event as a way to introduce the participants to the variety of scientific research questions and approaches and the fact that this research was being performed by people only three or four years older than themselves. To encourage interaction, each Bridge program participant completed the ‘Poster Session Assignment’ that required them to act as ‘conference reporter’ for at least three posters, filling out the sheet and presenting the summary to the rest of the students at the beginning of class the next day.

Because scientific research requires that experiments are not only completed but that data is analyzed and communicated effectively, the Bridge Program included instruction and experience in these areas. Participants were shown how to set up basic Excel spreadsheets so that they could tabulate and graphically represent results. They were required to present their findings as Powerpoint presentations for two units and as written results sections for another. In addition students gave ‘on the spot’ presentations. In this exercise, the students were shown computer search techniques and discussed critical analysis of information. They each chose a disease and were given fifteen minutes to prepare a presentation that discussed the implications that lifestyle choices have on the occurrence or severity of this disease. After each oral or written exercise, students were given individual feedback and suggestions on ways in which they could improve.

In addition to contact with researchers and oral and written communication skill development, the program provided instruction on biomedical concepts and laboratory skills. Students learned about modes of inheritance, the role of mutations in adaptive evolution and in the development of disease. They learned about the difference between inherited and communicable diseases and between viruses and bacteria. They learned about epidemics, the function of immunization, and the role of lifestyle in overall health.

They learned these concepts by performing experiments where they determined their genotypes by extracting DNA and analyzing PCR products through gel electrophoresis. They brought in substances ranging from the carbon buildup in a car exhaust pipe to tooth whitener to examine the substances’ ability to cause mutations in Salmonella (Ames test). They mimicked the spread of a communicable disease using a ‘swapping fluids’ exercise and traced the outbreak to a single person (Sperduto had it). They designed experiments that looked at the bacterial populations present on door handles, library computer keyboards, and hymnals from the church next door (with the take home message was wash your hands before and after using public computers). They performed a simulated ELISA to determine if the ‘people’ tested had been immunized with a real or counterfeit smallpox vaccine. Finally they used themselves as subjects to examine the effect of exercise on heart rate, blood pressure and CO2 production. Each exercise was designed to teach them new laboratory techniques and to build on their ability to design experiments and analyze data.

The course concluded with a final evaluation in which the students were required to apply their new knowledge and skills to novel situations in essay questions and a practical. Teaching interns graded the final test and wrote evaluations for each participant. This feedback, a letter commending their participation and a certificate of completion were mailed to each participant on August 12th. In addition to the lunches which had been provided each day of the program, each participant also received a $500 stipend which was processed upon completion of the course and mailed to their home address.

After the final, students completed a post-course survey that assessed their attitudes toward science, their confidence in science and their attitudes about the program. The pre and post course assessments were developed in conjunction with Dr Scott Tonidandel (supported by this HHMI grant for assessment development and analysis). Pre and post assessments were compared to determine whether the program had increased the participant’s confidence in science. Dr. Tonidandel’s analysis of the data (paraphrased here) suggests that before the program the students were relatively confident in their ability to understand, analyze, and explain scientific writing, terms and data (~ 5.4 on 1 to 7 scale where 7= extremely confident). Interestingly, after the program the students were less confident of their ability to explain science questions which may, in part, be due to the fact that they realized there was more to science than what they had learned in previous courses. The participants were already confident of their ability to communicate results in the form of a table or graphs and their ability to determine the relevance of a scientific article and the program affected very little change in their confidence in these areas. The students expressed the largest increase in confidence in their ability to perform actual scientific procedures such as PCR and pipetting. In these areas their confidence rose from 3.9 (somewhat confident) to an average of 6.4 (highly to extremely confident).

The analysis reveals that the participants were highly satisfied with the program. Two thirds of the respondents said that the program should remain as it is (the other two suggested more labs). Using a 1-7 scale where 1=Strongly Disagree, 4= Neutral, and 7= Strongly Agree, the students gave the statement that ‘they are more comfortable with taking a laboratory course in college now that they had taken this course’ a mean ranking of 5.2 and that they ‘learned new techniques, ideas, concepts, processes and/or theories during this program’ a mean ranking of 5.8. A mean ranking of 5.8 was also given when asked if they would participate in a similar program in the future and 6.0 when asked if they would recommend this program to their friends. Overall they had a positive experience.

Post-course discussions with the teaching interns revealed that preparing for the course had caused them to learn the related biomedical material to greater depths than they had before. They both remarked that being in front of a class made them realize how much a teacher can tell about the interest and engagement of the class. They also stated that while the experience confirmed their suspicions that they did not want to teach high school. Both indicated a desire to change the way they will approach future learning. Now they place a higher value on active participation and self-motivated investigation because the understanding is deeper and more long lasting.

Because the Love of Learning Program has been discontinued, student nominations for the 2006 HHMI Bridge Program will be solicited through contacts in the Freedom Schools program as well as with North Mecklenburg High School. Mooresville Senior High School faculty will also be asked to recommend participants in hopes of providing a larger pool of high school student candidates. In addition, the Bridge program will be held later in July to avoid conflicts with high school sports and band camps.