In an email, Anil expressed a hope that I would continue writing about courses I teach. So this is for you Anil and it is something you are passionate about- reaching out. I have been going with a team of our undergraduates to local high schools to present DNA fingerprinting workshops. It is a service learning class and we take our expertise and equipment to 10th grade biology classes so that the students can do DNA analysis to solve a crime. Imagine this. We transform the library into a lab and the librarian has to watch as the students pour liquids into plexi-glass gel boxes, don gloves and inject blue samples into slabs of jello-like stuff. As part of my rather goofy presentation I even pretend to steal one of the books. But as we left one school, the librarian claimed we worked a 'miracle' and that in her twenty years she had never seen the students so engaged and working so hard.
The 'miracle' is of course the 5:1 student-mentor ratio and the undergrads themselves who are an order of magnitude cooler than me and most of the teachers! What we do is a drop in the ocean and there is no point in sugar coating it- the schools we visit are not places where learning is revered above all else. Neither was my English boarding school. I was a lack luster student- but the classroom was quiet and ordered and nothing prevented me from listening to the teacher except me. Today it all seems more chaotic. The movie shows what some of the Ohio State undergraduates thought about the workshops.
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ReplyDeleteI was fortunate to be part of the outreach that Mandy does. This was way back in 2002, I believe. I tagged along with Mandy's team and visited a high school in downtown Columbus. It was an awesome experience and most importantly Mandy was totally COOL! The students that day vouched for it.
ReplyDeleteI am very glad, but not surprised at all, that this program is continuing to take science into classrooms and touching the lives of many inner city high school students in Columbus. I wish this program a great success now, and in the years to come. I hope that this program will grow and evolve as the years go.
Mandy - do you remember the webcast session of the HHMI Holiday Lectures when a group of high school students visited OSU and Arthur (Burghess), Steve (Rissing) and you were our experts? I made you three run a lot. The program could have been better organized (I take the blame), but that was also an important experience for me. Some of the students seemed to have enjoyed that experience as well.
Go BUCKS! I owe a lot to Ohio State.
Your students are fired up Mandy. Your blog is languishing though - close to two years have gone by, hope things are well with you.
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