Research Experience for High School Students- Summer 2009



Research Experience for High School Students- Summer 2009

Program Description

BACKGROUND:

Working with Matt Corcoran and the Framingham School system this program was created in the summer of 2009. The goal is two fold. To provide WC summer research students with an opportunity to mentor a high school student while explaining and involving the student in their research project and to provide a high school student the opportunity to experience science in action.

STUDENTS:

Framingham students will be matched up with summer science research students at Wellesley College.

LOGISTICS:

Throughout the duration of WC’s summer research program, students will come to Wellesley twice a week, and spend five hours each day with their mentor, for a total of 10 hours per week.

Mentors’ names and research description will be sent to Framingham High School and high school students who will participate will be chosen among rising high school junior and senior women who will be taking Advanced Placement or Honors science classes in the following year.

The entire program will last for six weeks for a total of 60 hours.

The Orientation will be held at Wellesley College on June 10th. The details of the Orientation will be as follows:

First hour

• Work- based learning plans and instructions will be distributed to the students. Directors from Framingham High School will go over students’ roles, responsibilities, and requirements for receiving course credit.

• Wellesley College Program Coordinator will lead a group discussion on the previously distributed articles:

• Deduction & Induction by William M.K. Trochim

• Strong Inference by John Platt

• How to Read a Scientific Paper by John Little and Roy Parker

Second hour

• mentors will join the students.

• The facilitator will lead a discussion on the goals of the program, responsibilities of the mentee and the mentor. Students and mentors are recommended to exchange e-mails and phone numbers so they can be in touch when the student arrives on campus on her first day.

• Students will then tour the laboratories and meet the lab members.

The Orientation is expected to last 2 hours.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

High School students:

• High school students who are matched with Chemistry research students will come on Tuesdays and Wednesdays while those who are matched with Biology research students will come on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

• Work-based learning plans and internship handbooks will be distributed to students during the Orientation. The handbook will contain a log where students will keep track of the number of times they came to Wellesley College and the number of hours they spent each time. Time spent attending lectures, group discussions, journal clubs, and lab meetings will be counted towards the completion of the 60 hours.

• Students will also record daily tasks and experiments and reflect on their learning at the end of each day. These journals will be collected by Framingham High School at the end of the program before credit is awarded.

• Working collaboratively on the design and presentation of the poster that is described in the previous section.

• If a student misses a day or expects to travel during part of the summer, she should speak with her mentor on which day she can come in to make up for the missed time. Failure to complete the minimum 60 hours may lead to no credit being awarded.

WC Mentors:

• During Orientation and in the first day, the mentor will explain to the student the overall purpose behind their particular area of research and methodologies employed in their laboratory. They will give an overview of what they are trying to accomplish during the summer and what set of experiments they plan to do. They will also discuss with the students how she can be part of this and what her role will be around the lab. The role of the high school student will vary from one lab to another.

• At the beginning of each meeting with the student, the mentor is responsible for explaining to the student what the day’s experiments entail and how it fits into the grand scheme of what they are trying to accomplish.

• The mentor will explain the students the experiment methodology in a stepwise fashion while the student observes how the experiment is being carried out, taking into account that the student may not be closely familiar with the background.

• The mentor is encouraged to involve the student in a piece of their experiment, allowing the student to apply the concepts she learns and practice the skills that she observes.

• The mentor is encouraged to give the student supplementary reading related to the methods employed in the experiment and previous experiments on which they are basing their research.

• We remind the mentors that students may be frustrated with experiments which don’t work at first. They should keep in mind that this may be the first time the high school student is exposed to research with an unknown set of outcomes and remind them that this is the basis behind real-life scientific research. They should explain to the students how to proceed in cases where experiments don’t work as expected.

• Some useful links for Mentor preparation:

o Deductive and inductive reasoning

o How to read a scienctific paper

o Ideas for rapid progress in scientific thinking-jstor article

EVALUATION

• All of the students in the program will work together to create a final poster presentation recounting their summer research experience in the Wellesley College laboratories. They will start working on this poster on the third week of the Program. Cost of printing the poster will be covered by Science Outreach. The poster will be presented jointly at the final poster presentation day at Wellesley College. Chemistry students who regularly come on Tuesdays and Wednesdays should arrange to come on Wednesday and Thursday this week. The poster will be taken back to Framingham High School and presented at the beginning of the school year.

• There will be a midpoint evaluation three weeks after the start of the Program. Mentors will receive an e-mail from the Program Director on where this will be held.

• Students are expected to complete 60 hours as part of the program. They will keep a log of how they spent this time in their internship handbooks. At the end of the summer, students will receive credit from Framingham high school for completion of 60 hours at this internship.

Contacts for the Program:

Christa Skow: cskow@wellesley.edu

Katherine Rooks: krooks@wellesley.edu

Matt Corcoran: mcorcoran@framingham.k12.ma.us

Linda Curtis: lcurtis@framingham.k12.ma.us

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