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On a Saturday in late spring, 17-year-old Thomas Jackson was up early and bounding out the door. Unlike many boys his age, however, he was not headed for the baseball diamond or the basketball court. Instead, he was off for the Chicago campus of the Northwesten University Medical School, off North Michigan Avenue. Jackson, a senior in fall at Whitney Young High School, would be in a laboratory researching the relative growth rate of teeth to skull size in various primate species. He measures the growth rate by computer. It was Jackson's latest project for the Science Scene: Kids and Teens program. Jackson and his mentor, Christopher Vinyard, a doctorate candidate in evolutionary biology, were working in the field of allometry. It's "like if you take a Xerox copy and make it bigger, everything [on it] gets proportionately bigger," Jackson explained "but in animals and humans, it doesn't work like that; if your head gets bigger, not everything [inside it] gets bigger in the same proportion." One aspect of their research is whether an animals food has an effect on the size of its teeth. The program in which Jackson and Vinyard collaborate is a joint venture undertaken by the NU Medical School and the Chicago Academy of Sciences. The program's two founders and chief overseers are Robert Goldman, chairman of the medical school's department of cell and molecular biology, and Jon Miller, vice president of the academy and director of the International Center for the Advancement of Scientific Literacy, based at the academy. The high school students vresearch whatever projects their mentors are working on. Science Scene was begun in 1993 with a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Its focus, Goldman said, is "to try to interest underrepresented minority teenagers in going into a career in science, or at least get them interested enough to consider science as a potential career." Science Scene is one of several science-based programs offered by Chicago-area universities. others include the Illi- nois Institute of Technology's Early Identification Program and its Discovery Approach to Science Enhancement program, known as DASH; DePaul University's Students, Teachers, Educators and Parents program, called STEP; and the University of Illinois at Chicago's Internship Program. The teens in Science Scene are Chicago high school students who come in for laboratory work with mentors from about 9 am. to 2 or 3 pm. every other Saturday during the school year. On alternate Saturdays, they work at the academy, mentoring elementary school children in science studies. These children are mostly from Chicago Housing Authority complexes. During the summer, the mentoring takes place at the academy's camp for the children in Lincoln Park just north of Fullerton Parkway. The teens set up their own projects for the children, demonstrating various aspects of the ecology, animal, migration or other nature-related subjects. Most of the graduate school mentors also are from ethnic minorities. They are working toward doctorates in cell and molecular., biology, and some also study medicine. "The thing is that they [the teens] are now seeing more in the flesh people of their backgrounds or their ethnicities who can say, 'Yeah, I'm getting my doctorate,"' Miller said. "They can teach these kids a lot of things--a lot of what they teach them is hope." One of the "Coco" Lopez, 26, a native of Puerto Rico, had an opportunity to study in a similar program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, when he was in high school. He earned a bachelor's degree in biology with a minor in Spanish poetry from MIT before enrolling at NU, in a program that leads to both a doctoral and a medical degree. Lopez Said he believes he is giving something back to the community. I knew there were Hispanic students involved in the program, and it was a great opportunity to say, 'Hey, I am not a novelty, |
we can do this. If You work hard, you can go where you want to go," Lopez said. Lopez and his students were researching the effects of a cancer drug on a protein found in all cells. Thus far, the program has been open only to high school sophomores and juniors, but funding is being sought to include seniors. About 12 teens usually are matched. with 5 or 6 mentors, generally two teens per mentor. Teens and graduate students receive a small stipend for their participation. The mentors and teens relish the opportunity to teach. "Working with the kids was the first benefit I got," Jackson said. "Some of the kids think science is boring, so you take the same information, put a little spin on it, and they say, 'Wow.'" That's great for me because it makes you learn the information backwards and forwards." Far from being difficult or dull, science comes to life for high schoolers with help from college programs Fifelian Osikanlu, 16, a Whitney Young senior in fall, also noted the benefits of teaching. "We had to break information down for very young children. ...Now when I learn something, I make sure I can explain it to everybody." Her lab mate, Norma Viveros, 17, a senior in fall at Clemente High School, agreed. Osikanlu and Viveros; credited the program with developing their communication skills. Osikanlu, from Nigeria, grew up speaking Yoruba and English. She has been in this country three years. "When I first came here, I was afraid to speak because I thought people would not understand me, but the program helped a lot" she said. Viveros, from Mexico, whose native language is Spanish, said she was very shy before she entered the program. "I only knew people of my own culture," she said, "but now I have been involved with people of other cultures, and the mentors helped me a lot with my speaking skills:" Osikanlu, Viveros and their mentor recently researched the function of gli a part of DNA, in cancer cells. They concluded that gli has a controlling effect on cancer cells. David Edwards, 17, a June graduate of Morgan Park High School, entered the discovery program at IIT the summer after hisfreshman year in highschool. Edwards also completed the Early Identification program, which is for talented minority students. It is offered in the summer but also has a school year component. The program is more involved with technology and computer science than the discovery program, Edwards said. He found it especially beneficial because he wants to become a computer engineer. After graduating a year early from Morgan Park, he expects to enter IIT in fall. Early Identification entrants must have completed three years of science and two of math and must have a B average in those subjects. The programs usually have about 40 students, although the discovery program can have up to 60. Most are recruited from the Chicago Public Schools. Rita Jimenez, 17, was a freshman at Juarez High School when her math teacher told her about a college preparatory program at DePaul University. "She said that I should try it; I did and I liked it, and I am still there," said Jimenez, who will be a senior in fall. Jimenez will be one of about 170 students from some 30 Chicago high schools who will be heading for DePaul's Lincoln Park campus to take part in its Saturday STEP program in fall. Its director Rafaela Weffer, a DePaul professor in the education department and the associate vice president of academic affairs, began the program in 1982. "The idea was to develop students who weren't prepared to go to college," she said. Students begin the program, as high school freshmen and continue through their senior year. Weffer said she believes the four year cycle is necessary. "We feel that the sequencing of learning and maintaining |
these kids as a group is important" she said. The curriculum is heavily geared toward math and science. When the Program was started, Weffer's research showed that most students lacked access to good lab facilities, something that DePaul could provide. She also found that Hispanic students were underrepresented in college math and science programs. The DePaul program began with mostly Hispanic students. Today, its students are mostly Hispanic and African-American. Weffer considers parental involvement a key factor in the program. Parents whose children enter the program must agree to attend monthly meetings. The program is designed largely to accommodate average students. About 95 percent of students who complete the program go on to college, Weffer said. I have always been interested in physics and how the dynamics of the world around me works; I had nothing better to do that summer, so I said "Why not?" If Edwards seemed a little blase about starting the program, his attitude soon changed. That did not surprise Peter Johnson, IIT professor of chemistry and director or most of the school's precollege programs. "DASH takes a hands-on approach to demonstrate that science can be fun," he stated in a proposal paper for the program. One of the ways it does that, Johnson explained, is to show that math and physics are a part of everyday life. One "everyday" concept in Physics is, demonstrated in a trip to the Sears Tower. Students are told to stand on a scale in an elevator. "When the elevator first starts, there's a quick acceleration and your weight goes up a whole lot," Johnson said. "Near the top, when the elevator slows down suddenly, youll find that your weight goes way down." Through physics, the students learn why this happens. The five-week program, begun in 1990, is offered during the summer to high school students who have completed their freshman or sophomore years and have at least a B average in their math and science courses. During the first two weeks Of the program, the students study the physics of acceleration. velocity and distance. The final weeks of the program are spent building a model rocket that will be launched in a contest as the program's finale, Edwards said. ""You' want it to go to a specified height [60 meters or almost 200 feet], no higher or lower;" Edwards said. "The person who gets closest to that height wins. Various factors have to be taken into account, such as wind resistance, mass, weight and aerodynamics." The winner receives an upscale model rocket kit. At UIC, the internship program for science-minded high schoolers is still a fledgling. The summer program is in its third session with about 20 students, mostly from nearby Whitney Young High School. One of its co-directors, Nigel Browning, an assistant professor of physics, would like to see the program grow to 100 or 200 students when more funding is available The program receives funding from a foundation sponsor, and the university matches it. "What we found over the years is that coming here to do physical, science get scared off very, very quickly," Browning said. "So to try to overcome this, we have, an internship program where we bring high school students into UIC in summer for six-weeks, and let them work with research groups." During the program's first two years, students did research in Browning's electron microscopy laboratory, worked with semiconductors and were attached to research groups in the optics and physics labs. To compensate the students for money they might have made in summer Jobs, the program pays them $250 A week. Browning believes the main benefit of the program is that it helps reduce the stigma of studying science-the belief that science is hard and dull. "It is an incredible benefit to [the faculty because we get to see what's on the minds of Students who will be here in a couple of years," Browning said. "We see some of the things we need to address as they arrive to make their stay in college a lot. better." |
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