The biggest challenge this year was the ability of students in the Student Scientist program to complete the full year. One students was asked to leave because her mentor left for another job and the supervisor felt that the student was not serious enough about the project to assign her to another mentor. This student was a senior and was exhibiting "senioritis" so the program director will try to fill the positions with qualified underclassman, rather than students. The director will also communicate with the scientists and students on a monthly basis in regard to performance. The director will also send a letter home to the parents of each participate at the beginning of the program outlining the student's obligations for the year.
The retention of teachers in the Classroom Partnership until the completion of the program was also a challenge this year. One teacher was dismissed at the end of the summer because she did not complete the required time in the lab necessary to set up the materials and complete the procedures before the project was introduced to the classroom students. The teacher had accepted participation in another program which she did not divulge to the director - that program took her away to another country for four weeks. She also visited her family for two weeks. Therefore she could not complete the necessary five weeks in our program. The Program Director will ask for the exact five weeks that the teacher will be in the lab during the interview and before the teacher is accepted into the program. A letter will also be sent to the principal of the teacher's school outlining the obligations of the program.
On the Fox Chase Cancer Center, we created an alumni page for our student scientists so we can track college majors, career choices and the impact our program had on the students we served. You can view this website at http://labs.fccc.edu/alumni. Alumni recieve reminder letters once a year to visit the website and to update their information.
CancerEdWeb is an interactive web site designed to reach high school and middle school students who cannot visit Fox Chase Cancer Center to tour and ask questions about the causes and prevention of cancer or who are not part of our Classroom Partnership Program. The animated interactive web site is designed to make it easy for students with little or no science background to learn what cancer is, what causes it and how to reduce their risk of getting it. While aimed at students, the information on CancerEdWeb will also be helpful to patients or anyone wanting to learn more about these topics. You can view the beginnings of Cancer Ed Web at http://labs.fccc.edu/canceredweb/index.html
