CU program helps grad students teach in the public schools

By Lissa Harris

A new Cornell program that provides funding for science and engineering graduate students to teach in public schools has been awarded $1.5 million by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to continue and expand its work for three years.

Sean Mullen, right, Cornell graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology, works with high school students David Hoffmann, left, and Britni Lott on a hydroponics project in teacher Dan Flerlage's ecology class at the Alternative Community School in Ithaca. Mullen is a Cornell Environmental Inquiry Research Partnership fellow. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

The new program, called Cornell Scientific Inquiry Partnerships (CSIP), is an expansion of the Cornell Environmental Inquiry Research Partnership (CEIRP), which since 2000 has provided full support for about 10 graduate students a year to work with teachers in public K-12 schools. The students serve as scientific role models in the classroom and also teach and help develop curricular materials.

While graduate students at Cornell have many opportunities to teach and conduct outreach in local schools, CSIP is the only program on campus that fully supports graduate students who teach outside the university. Each fellow receives free Cornell tuition, plus a stipend of $21,500 and paid health insurance.

To date, the program's focus has been on environmental science. This spring, however, competition for funds from the program will be opened to graduate students in other fields.

"We would like to build collaboration with more programs," said Marianne Krasny, professor of natural resources and joint principal investigator on the NSF grant with Nancy Trautmann of Cornell's Center for the Environment. The two are working in conjunction with the university's faculty and staff in engineering, physics and materials science to recruit participants for the program from other scientific disciplines.

Many CEIRP fellows have used their graduate research to introduce students to the world of scientific investigation. Jenn Dearolf, a zoologist who studied dolphin musculature while at Cornell, last year used pieces of muscle to teach high school biology students about how muscles use energy.

Others have focused on teaching students about the nature of science. Fellow Nancy Gift introduced her students to the process of peer review by discussing a series of National Geographic magazine articles documenting the discovery of a dinosaur fossil that later was shown to be a forgery.

Even more important than the fellows' scientific expertise, said Trautmann, is their ability to serve as role models for their students, most of whom have never met a scientist.

"In addition to the science our graduate students bring to the classroom, every single teacher tells us what wonderful role models they are," said Trautmann. "They're young, they're enthusiastic and they're usually really excited about some aspect of science that high school students haven't thought to be excited about before."

CEIRP was one of 31 projects nationwide originally funded by the NSF. Following this latest, second round of funding, the agency expects the program to become self-sustaining. Krasny and Trautmann, in search of permanent support, are hoping that their program will gain the attention of individual investigators seeking to incorporate outreach and education into their grant proposals.

CSIP currently is accepting applications for the 2003-2004 academic year. Interested graduate students in science or engineering fields should submit application materials to Nancy Bowers in the Department of Natural Resources by Feb. 28. Application information and materials are available at http://csip.cornell.edu.