A successful research-based partnership between university scientists and high school teachers
- North Carolina Biotechnology Center, Research Triangle Park, NC (United States)
- Duke Univ. Medical Center, Durham, NC (United States)
The goal of this program was to involve students in real-world science through collaboration on a research project with university scientists. The North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBC) and a Duke University Medical Center laboratory identified a line of experimentation that was both relevant to the focus of the lab, and technically and intellectually appropriate for the high school setting. The investigations involve restriction mapping of transposon insertions in thegenome of bacteriophage T4. Teachers involved in the project were already familiar with restriction analysis through prior attendance at labs. In summer 1992, NCBC staff and the Duke scientists held a workshop to orient ten teachers to the project and prepare materials for analysis by their students. During the school year, a member of the lab visited each classroom and discusses the project. Students conducted mapping experiments and presented their data at a conference in the spring of 1993. Twenty insertions were mapped in the first year. In the 1993 teacher workshop, teachers isolated new mutants and screened them for sensitivity to the anti-tumor drug studied by the Duke group, identifying several mutants of interest. Now in its second year, the collaboration has generated valuable scientific results and inspired independent spin-off activities. Impact on teachers and students has been evaluated through questionnaires.
- Research Organization:
- Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, Inc., Research Triangle Park, NC (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 111117
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9404192-; TRN: 95:007145-0054
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Sigma Xi forum for scientists educators and national standards on action at the local level, Atlanta, GA (United States), 14-15 Apr 1994; Other Information: PBD: 1994; Related Information: Is Part Of Scientists, educators, and national standards: Action at the local level; PB: 250 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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