The Scripps Research Institute

TSRI’s Spring Programs Bridge Gap Between Modern Lab and High-School Classroom

For students and teachers alike the advent of spring is associated with, well, a break. Spring Break, that capricious Puck, calls on them to abandon all things serious and studious, to embrace longer days and warmer temperatures before bearing down for the last leg of the semester. The six or so weeks following Spring Break are normally focused on the completion of projects and papers, units, and, ultimately, the school year.

But for 12 teachers and 21 students from 16 San Diego secondary schools, this spring promises fresh challenges and new beginnings.

For the past 12 years, The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has used its intellectual and material resources to promote and improve science literacy, enhance science teachers’ professional development, and inspire students to pursue careers in the life sciences. In recognition of the shift towards a multiracial, multiethnic society— both locally and nationally—TSRI encourages students and teachers from gender and ethnic groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences to attend its programs. Support is provided by the San Diego Workforce Partnership, the Joseph Drown Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation, the French Fund (administered by Wells Fargo Bank), and the Carl E. Wynn Foundation.

Twenty-One Teenagers Have Chemistry

The high school students attending TSRI’s Spring Enrichment tutorials don’t merely arrive on campus every Wednesday at 3 PM. Instead, it’s as if they spring, en masse, with packed schedules, heavy backpacks, and the occasional instrument case in tow, from the shuttle buses that transport them from their respective schools each week. Selected from a large pool of applicants by Robin Goldsmith, vice president of communications and director of science education programs, and representatives from the Neighborhood House Association (which administers funds from the San Diego Workforce Partnership), these high school juniors and seniors are participating in an eight-week course on aspects of modern molecular biology and chemistry.

Taught by TSRI doctoral students, tutorials cover a variety of topics, with creative titles such as “Genetics and Genomics: As Simple as A-T-G-C” and "Dance of the Macromolecules." Graduate students also organize demonstrations and hands-on activities for the high school participants.

For the grad students, the program provides teaching experience they wouldn’t get otherwise. The chance to develop skills explaining science to public groups with varying experience and knowledge is an added benefit. Primarily, though, they want to get the students excited about science.

"We try to make biomedical research accessible to them," says graduate student Megan Trevathan, who coordinates the tutorials, "to give them a window into a world they might not have access to otherwise."

As coordinator of TSRI’s educational outreach programs, I’ve gotten to know the high school students during the past three weeks. Their exuberance, ambition, and interest in the sciences impress me. And their ability to juggle school and myriad extracurricular activities with the quintessential teenage "no big deal" attitude.

Jessica Gomez, for example, is a junior at Chula Vista High School and a member of the concert/marching band, which meets daily during sixth and seventh period. "Since I have the same teacher both periods," she explains, "I worked out an agreement where she lets me miss seventh period and leave at 2:15 PM on Wednesdays to meet the shuttle to Scripps." What’s more, Jessica takes a class through Southwestern College on Wednesday nights and so arranged for her mother to swing by TSRI after work and to take her straight there. Like most ambitious teenagers with the energy to match, leaving something out just doesn’t enter in.

Once the school year ends, each of the 21 high schoolers will have a chance to channel his or her energy into more specific areas of research, working as a student intern in a TSRI lab for the summer.

Saviz Sepah, the top-ranked student of his junior class at Scripps Ranch High School, tells me he hopes to find a challenging internship position. "Nothing too routine," he says.

I ask the students as a group what area they hope to be working in during the summer.

"Biotechnology!!!" the chorus booms.

Twelve Ready Educators

The newest component of TSRI’s educational outreach is the Science Partnership Scholars Program. Each year since its inception in 1999, 12 middle and high school science teachers from throughout San Diego County are selected to attend the six-week program, comprised of a Saturday orientation and Tuesday after-school sessions on the TSRI campus. Under the supervision of Professor Elizabeth Getzoff, a group of graduate students has developed a curriculum which includes hands-on experiments that teachers can use in their classrooms, as well as presentations on state-of-the-art research topics and techniques.

The day I visit the Scholars Program, Gerald Joyce, professor in the Department of Molecular Biology, is well into an engaging presentation on Darwinian evolution at the molecular level. Twelve middle and high school teachers sit in various poses around a large conference table scattered with briefcases, coffee cups, cookie remnants, and water bottles. With eyes fixed on Dr. Joyce, the teachers are attentive and alert—the perfect pupils.

"One of the things I would like to see conveyed to students," he tells them, "is that evolutionary changes are purely chemical. There’s nothing controversial in that itself."

Later, after Dr. Joyce has left and graduate student Eugene Wu has taken over, the discussion veers into Evolution vs. Creation territory, and how these teachers deal with the topic in their classrooms. Some parents get upset if the theory of evolution is presented to their children, notes one teacher. Sarah Allen Peddie, biology teacher at Kearny High School, shares her recent approach that involves setting up a mock trial and assigning half the class to argue Evolution and the other, Creation. The important thing to convey, Eugene stresses, is that science doesn't prove things; the work of science is to put forth hypotheses, and from there to amass data that either discounts or supports them.

It is now 6 PM and well past the tutorial’s scheduled end. By way of closing, Eugene comments: "You are on the front lines of this issue and I admire you for that. You are the most important scientists in this regard." He adds that he had planned to discuss how microbes reproduce clonally, but since they’ve run overtime, he can give them notes instead. The teachers protest— "Go on, go on."

I walk to the parking lot with Joanne Mons Johnson, who teaches advanced placement (AP) biology, marine science, and algebra at Kearny High. I ask her what it’s like to be taught by graduate students. "They have a freshness and a generosity of spirit, " Joanne tells me. "They have a greater knowledge than we do, but share it in a way that really honors us."

Cultivating the Garden

The common thread that ties together TSRI’s Spring Enrichment Tutorials and Science Partnership Scholars Program is the aim to bridge the gap between the research that goes on in modern laboratories and the curriculum presented in high school science classrooms. The end goals are to provide students with a relevant education on some issues in science that will affect their lives, and to relay a sense of the vibrancy and excitement of research at the cutting-edge of biology and chemistry.

Spring is upon us at TSRI. Fresh faces, budding scientists, ripening pursuits.

Go back to News & Views Index

High-school students Tracie Nguyen, Erica Delgado, and Saviz Sepah (left to right) prepare a mock enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

Maria Mendez(left), science teacher at Wilson Middle School, and Beth Stroupe, TSRI graduate student and Scholars Program coordinator, look at protein structures using the RalMol program.