NEW YORK CITY -- "I've got four of 'em!" shrieked 7-year-old Brianna, holding an eyedropper she had used to draw up the salty water stored in a Mason jar. The jar, which smelled slightly like dead fish, housed hundreds of tiny, swimming organisms called brine shrimp.

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Second-graders from Harlem Children's Zone's Promise Academy use eyedroppers to fetch brine shrimp from a Mason jar. Students were able to observe the shrimp under a microscope and see such details as antennae, female egg sacs and feathery legs for swimming in salt water.

"I've got five!" responded second-grade classmate Jayden, as he tenderly placed his plastic microscope slide under the stage clips and then peered tentatively down the lens. "Wow," he added, "these shrimp have huge eyeballs!"

It was just one of many scientific observations students and teachers made at the learning stations of Microworld, an educational program in New York City developed by the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR).

CCMR staff and faculty members, along with representatives from several other Cornell outreach programs and research centers including the Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics (LEPP), the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research (CRSR) and the Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers, traveled to the Big Apple to spend three event-packed days providing underrepresented populations with research-based science education programming. The collaboration between the science outreach programs at Cornell and the Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC) connects Ithaca participants with New York City teachers and enhances existing programs through the WCMC outreach office.

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Peter Wittich, assistant professor of physics at LEPP, helps a second-grader from Harlem Children's Zone adjust his microscope in order to focus on a sample of sand from the coast of South America. Students created their own microscope slides, mounted and focused their samples and compared the shapes and sizes of sand grains from various locations throughout the world.

Responding to Cornell's outreach mission and expanding on the New York City Partnership for School Improvement goals established by Cornell's Office of the Associate Provost for Outreach, participants provided professional development opportunities for elementary and middle-school teachers as well as enrichment activities for second-grade students and teachers at Harlem Children's Zone.

The programs, delivered during successive visits to Queens, Harlem and Manhattan, relayed basic science concepts embedded in research conducted by scientists at Cornell and funded through the National Science Foundation, NASA and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Workshop participants engaged in hands-on learning and teaching activities focused on topics ranging from Saturn's rings to flowers produced through photosynthesis.

"I think outreach is just the right thing to do," said Peter Wittich, assistant professor of physics at LEPP. Wittich helped students examine the whorls and loops of their own fingerprints and demonstrated to teachers how bubbles can be used to explain Bernoulli's Principal.

During Wittich's keynote address at WCMC, teachers asked questions about the process of science and experimental design. The discussion continued throughout the lunch that followed.

"It is interesting to see how the teachers think and to learn about their needs and expectations," said Wittich. And the process is ongoing; CRSR and LEPP will host an institute for New York participants this summer at Cornell, and trips to New York City are being planned for the fall semester.

Lora K. Hine is the educational outreach coordinator for the Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics at Cornell.