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Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Award Year: 1999

Report Year:

Outcomes, Challenges, and Resources


Outcomes
  • Over each of the past 4 years of the HHMI project, approximately twenty students have been mentored at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Every one of these students has excelled, with a 100% graduation rate and a 100% acceptance rate into College. Considering the fact that less than 30% of their peers in high school graduate, this outcome is highly significant. Equally encouraging is the fact that students in the program have been accepted into some of the finest universities in the country---places like Dartmouth and Case Western Reserve University.
  • Another significant outcome relates to teacher preparation. In the original application to HHMI, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation proposed to recruit a "Faculty Scholar" from the Cleveland Public School System. This concept did not work well, primarily because it was difficult for a single teacher to cover the breadth of research being performed at the Cleveland Clinic. As a result, it was difficult to transfer knowledge to the school classroom setting. Our solution was to offer multidisciplinary summer workshops to groups of about twenty teachers. The topics have included, (i) Physics in Medicine, (ii) Human Physiology in Space, and (iii) Human Biology. These have proved very popular, and in fact, are continuing even without continued HHMI funding. Finally, these workshops have led to a proposal being sent to the Shuttleworth Foundation to have similar teacher workshops in South Africa.
  • During the course of the HHMI project, mentors, teachers and the P.I. have developed lesson plans that relate to the use of mathematics, physics and biology in medicine. Two documents dealing with (i) mechanisms leading to orthopedic implant failures and (ii) the use of mathematics in medicine, have been added to the CCF website. These documents are two of the most commonly downloaded documents from the CCF website. Currently two other documents are being added to the website for use by teachers around the country.
Challenges
  • Obviously the largest challenge facing our program is the fact that HHMI funding is no longer available. We are addressing this crisis by aggressively approaching federal, philantropic, and corporate sources of support.
  • A second challenge relates to the gender disparity in the students who are admitted into our program. Minority male students continue to express the opinion that math and science "are not cool".
Resources
  • The summer workshop that was offered to teachers during 2002 was very successful. This workshop was hosted by the CCF and the HHMI funds allowed us to purchase supplies for the teachers to use at their own schools. The theme of this workshop---Human Physiology in Space---is one that greatly interests many students. One resource that the P.I. has found particularly helpful the National Space Biomedical Research Institute. This organization hands out excellent materials for teachers to use in the classroom. See: http://www.nsbri.org/Education/Materials.html
  • The second set of resources we think is very useful to teachers who are trying to link mathematics, physics and biology is the set of lesson plans available through the CCF website: http://www.lerner.ccf.org/bme/education/k12/ There are currently two documents that can be downloaded (one relating to orthopedic implants and one giving examples of where mathematics is useful in medicine), but more lesson plans are about to be added to this website.


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