Patricia Conklin, center, research associate at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell, explains the genetic analyses of vitamin C-deficient mutants of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, with Daniel Ware, left, of Newfield High School, and Tamar Melen of Ithaca High School. The high school seniors participate in the BOCES New Visions program. Charles Harrington/University Photography
Jan-Willem Dhondt applied to Cornell when he was a junior at Trumansburg High School. Now at 17, he's studying with acclaimed professors at the university before he's even received his high school diploma.
Dhondt and 13 other local high school seniors are studying at Cornell through New Visions, a Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) program.
The highly competitive New Visions program gives selected New York high school students a senior-year option for earning English, economics, government and biology credits toward their high school diplomas. The program often provides students with opportunities in hospital or courtroom settings, in addition to their classroom work. With support from Fred Quimby, D.V.M., professor of veterinary pathology, the Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES program came to Cornell this year to give students access to the university's facilities to earn their credits.
"It's intended to give high school students who express an interest in the biological sciences and who are at the top of their class, an opportunity to experience working with the resources we have in our laboratories," said Quimby, who is the Cornell faculty adviser for New Visions.
The program costs the students nothing; they are fully supported by BOCES. Quimby said Cornell even was able to find funding to take care of the rabies shots the students needed before they could work in the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.
"It's much more difficult than going to high school," Quimby said of the work the New Visions students do on campus, "and the students put in many more hours of work, but they love it."
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Friday, the students are on campus, supervised by New Visions teacher Thea Martin. They meet for guest lectures and lab work with instructors from the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Agriculture and Life Sciences, Human Ecology and Veterinary Medicine.
For instance, Susan Suarez, an associate professor of veterinary anatomy, explained to the group her 10-year study of hormone levels' effects on reproduction.
Martin grades the students' essays and lab write-ups for their course requirements but not in a traditional classroom format.
"The idea is for us to have the students learn by themselves," she said. "I don't lecture. We try to incorporate their course requirements into our activities instead."
Every Friday the students take a "field trip," such as their visit to the 5 million specimen insect collection in the Department of Entomology in Comstock Hall. Now they are taking a series of three trips to the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research (BTI), a private plant research organization located on the Cornell campus.
"The students were being exposed daily to animal sciences in the vet school, so this is a good opportunity for them to work in the plant sciences," said Bill Retzlaff, research associate and one of the organizers of the Education Outreach Committee at BTI. On its first visit, the group toured the BTI facilities. On their subsequent visits, the students returned to work in labs with the BTI research staff.
Five of the students experimented with wormseed mustard extract and butterflies to determine the extract's toxicity, with Research Assistant Kim Lopez, who had conducted the same experiment as part of her research a few months earlier at BTI.
"We were watching butterflies' larval acceptance of the extract to see if it was toxic or just a deterrent," Lopez said. "It's a very simple experiment. The hardest part is probably interpreting the results."
On the same day in another BTI lab, five students studied the segregation of mutant genes which cause Vitamin C deficiency in the plant Arabidopsis thaliana with Research Associate Patricia Conklin. Three students also worked with microscopes, comparing the leaf anatomy of various types of "fast plants," a mustard cultivar, with Research Associate Denise Costich, while another student, Dhondt, was in a growth chamber with Research Associate Sung-Chul Yun, taking measurements of the fast plants' rate of photosynthesis.
"One of the most exciting parts is that the professors and researchers actually talk to us and let us ask questions, and the equipment we get to use is fantastic," said Dhondt, who held in his hand a LI-COR Photosynthesis System, a device that measures plants' carbon dioxide uptake.
"The kids are soaking it up; they know that they are getting to meet and talk to people they never would have otherwise," Martin said.
And with the rave reviews from this year's students, she said an open house brought many more students interested in applying for next year.
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