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After 11 years as director of the Oklahoma Science Project, molecular biologist Philip M. Silverman has learned some lessons worth passing on. The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) launched a program in 1988 to provide an 8-week summer research experience for Oklahoma public high school teachers. Some teachers were inspired by their experience, but were left with nothing to take back to their students except enthusiasm, which quickly faded. Today, the program looks very different but is having its intended impact.
HHMI: WHAT WERE THE OBVIOUS THINGS THAT NEEDED TO CHANGE WHEN YOU BEGAN OBSERVING THE PROGRAM?
PS: The original program, called the Foundation Scholar Program, was based on the expectation that working on a cutting-edge project under the tutelage of a professional research scientist would somehow make the participants more effective science teachers. But science education and scientific research are separate activities. Teachers need research training they can take back and use in their classrooms, which can be hard to find in a high-tech research lab. How many high school laboratories have a DNA sequencer? How many even have gas for Bunsen burners? Additionally, the teachers worked in separate labs on different techniques and topics. They needed an environment that encouraged ongoing interactions—with their mentor and each other—to develop experimental skills and confidence, to model a research dynamic, and to work out ways to bring back what they were learning at OMRF to their students. They needed to be together in the same lab.
HHMI: HOW DID YOU DECIDE ON THE RIGHT EXPERIMENTS TO USE?
PS: It hit me when I was reading the second edition of Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology, edited by John Cairns, Gunther Stent, and Jim Watson (expanded edition, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, NY, 1992). In the preface, Cairns wrote that all of the scientists who had done these fantastic phage experiments were dying off. He said, "The era of phage is over." When I read that, I thought, "Wait a minute. It's not over at all. The teachers would love these experiments." The science is fundamental and significant and the technology is cheap and simple. That's when I asked to try out my ideas with some teachers. I crowded a group of teachers into my laboratory, taught them the classic plaque assay for bacterial viruses, gave them some muddy lake water, and started them virus hunting.
Photo: Misty Keasler
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