Goals: 1) Increase the number of Alaskans from educationally and/or economically disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly Alaska Natives, who pursue careers in health sciences and health professions and 2) Inform the Alaskan public about health science research and the clinical trial process so that they are better equipped to make healthier lifestyle choices and better understand the aims and benefits of clinical research. Objectives: 1) Pre-med Summer Enrichment program (U-DOC) at UAA (pipeline into college), 2) Statewide Alaska Student Scientist Corps for U-DOC, 3) students (pipeline into college), 4) Facility-based Student Science Guide program at Imaginarium Science Discovery Center, 5) Job Shadowing/Mentorship Program for U-DOC students and biomedical researchers, 6) Research-based and student-led exhibit, demonstration, and multi-media presentations, 7) Professional Development for educators, 8) North Star Website.
1. Build stepwise a prototype -Virtual Clinical Research Center- (VCRC) for K-12 learners and mentors (diverse peers, experts, and patients) by accessing, mobilizing, and linking the human and physical resources of a prototype national network of Clinical Research Centers (CRC) and translational laboratories through state-of-the-art Telemedicine communication and collaborative technologies and featuring T3 or the 3Ts - Teams, Technologies, Translation - of the Clinical Research Enterprise); 2. Develop the Medical Ignorance Exploratorium (MIEx) as a hybrid K-12 cybercafe-health science museum with key features of a) navigable, game-like, 3D environment including -Isles of Medical Ignorance- and -Questionator,- b) Resource Library, c) Live Performance Theater; and d) Collaboration Space, all to stimulate and guide student-centered inquiry about medical breakthroughs, clinical topics, and sick patients (featuring cyber Q3 or the 3Qs-Questions, Questioning, and Questioners); 3. Evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the curricular and delivery resources and models in SA1 and 2 as well as the dissemination in SA4; 4. Disseminate, embed, and expand the refined Virtual CRC and Medical Ignorance Exploratorium in K-12 schools, the clinical research community, and beyond.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marlys WitteGrace WagnerMichael Bernas
The American Museum of Natural History requests SEPA support for a five-year development and implementation project entitled "Human Health and 'Human Bulletins': Scientists and Teens Explore Health Sciences in the Museum and World At Large." The program has three complementary components: (1) the development of 7 new productions for the Museum's digital media/documentary exhibition program, Human Bulletins http://sciencebulletins.amnh.org) featuring the newest health-related research; (2) a mini-course, entitled Hot Topics in Health Research NOW, an intensive after school program covering genetics, epidemiology, human health and human evolution, including a section on ethics in research; and (3) A "drop-in" Human Bulletins Science Club, where students meet monthly to watch a Human Bulletin visual news program, engage in informal discussions with significant researchers in the fields of evolutionary science and human health. The main goals of this project are: (1) to inform young people about emerging health-related research by using the Human Bulletins as core content for programming and points of engagement; (2) to promote a life-long interest in science among participants by teaching them how health-related science research could potentially affect them or their families; (3) to empower teens to critically assess the science presented to them in the Museum and in the world at large by teaching them to break down the "information bytes" of the Human Bulletins and to analyze how stories are presented visually and how to find answers to questions raised by the Bulletins; (4) for the young people in the program to see themselves as participants in the Museum by developing "mentor" relationships with Museum staff. This will allow students to see AMNH as an enduring institution to be used as a resource throughout their education and careers; and (5) to give students the means to envision themselves with future careers in science, research and in museums (thus fostering new generation of culturally-diverse, culturally enriched scientific leaders) by introducing them to scientists in an informal setting where there are no consequences for making mistakes or asking questions. The students will be given "behind the scenes" looks at new career options through the scientists featured in the Bulletins and the NIH funded researchers on the Advisory Board presenting at the informal sessions. Ultimately, the project aims to give students to critically process the information they receive about public health, see the relevance of human health science to their lives and pursue careers in health science. All of these skills are measurable through formative and summative evaluation. This project will teach young people to understand information about public health that is presented to them through visual and popular media as well as through formal scientific texts. It will also teach them to think about how human health sciences impact their lives and how the decisions they make impact larger human health. Finally, the program will also encourage students to pursue careers and further information about public health.
Having developed the concept of near-peer mentorship at the middle school/high school level and utilized it in a summer science education enhancement program now called Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science or GEMS at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), it is now our goal to ultimately expand this program into an extensive, research institute-based source of young, specially selected, near-peer mentors armed with kits, tools, teacher-student developed curricula, enthusiasm, time and talent for science teaching in the urban District of Columbia Public Schools (specific schools) and several more rural disadvantaged schools (Frederick and Howard Counties) in science teaching. We describe this program as a new in-school component, involving science clubs and lunch programs, patterned after our valuable summer science training modules and mentorship program. Our in-house program is at its maximum capacity at the Institute. Near-peer mentors will work in WRAIR's individual laboratories while perfecting/adapting hands-on activities for the new GEMS-X program to be carried out at McKinley Technology HS, Marian Koshland Museum, Roots Charter School and Lincoln Junior HS in DC, West Frederick Middle School, Frederick, MD and Folly Quarter Middle School and Glenelg HS, in Howard County, MD. Based on local demographics in these urban/rural areas, minority and disadvantaged youth, men and women, may choose science, mathematics, engineering and technology (SMET) careers with increasing frequency after participating, at such an early age, in specific learning in the quantitative disciplines. Many of these students take challenging courses within their schools, vastly improve their standardized test scores, take on internship opportunities, are provided recommendations from scientists and medical staff and ultimately are able to enter health professions that were previously unattainable. Relevance to Public Health: The Gains in the Education of Mathematis and Science (GEMS) program educates a diverse student population to benefit their science education and ultimately may improve the likelihood of successfully entry into a health or health-related professions for participating individuals. Medical education has been show to improve public health.
This project brings real scientific research into the public domain by establishing a research laboratory in a museum setting where visitors not only enroll in the study, they help shape it through their work as citizen scientists. Findings from the study will increase the public understanding of how genetic research translates into meaningful personal information that can be used to better understand personal health risks and opportunities. In a community-based participatory research laboratory, school-aged children and their families will participate in an authentic research project on the genetics of taste. In a series of simple but highly specific taste tests, participants will learn which gene variations they possess and how these variations influence how they taste foods. Taste function has been increasingly linked to human health, in that variability in taste sensation correlates with, and may in part be causal for, major health problems, including cardiovascular disease and obesity. Interactive exhibit components will inform participants about the scientific process, the principles of genetics, the human genome project and genetic variation. Teaching the public about their genetic profile and its influence on taste may have a positive impact on major health threats such as cardiovascular disease and obesity. The data collected from museum visitors who choose to enroll in the study will be sent to the museum's academic partners for further analysis and inclusion in their ongoing research analysis and publications. This laboratory experience not only engages and educates the public, but also advances the research enterprise and offers a vivid model for how to translate research into the public domain.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Bridget Coughlin
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The New York Hall of Science (NYHOS), in partnership with the University of Michigan (UM), the Miami Museum of Science (MMOS), the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), and a broad group of Science and Museum Advisors, requests $1,349,349 over five years for a combined Phase I and Phase II NIH SEPA grant to develop, test and travel a new hands-on science exhibition on the subjects of natural selection and human health. With the working title "Evolution and Health," the 1000-square-foot interactive traveling exhibition will engage middle and high-school students, educators and the general public in inquiry-based learning on the role of evolution and natural selection in explanations of health, illness, prevention, and treatment. In addition, teacher development programs and online activities focusing on health issues seen from an evolutionary perspective will be developed by the NYHOS Education staff and disseminated along with the exhibition on its national tour. The project will address the relationship between health and natural selection; while there are many museum exhibitions on health, this will be only one of two to take an evolutionary perspective, and the only one to explore the relationship between health and natural selection. Ultimately, "Evolution and Health" will become a national model for conveying an evolutionary understanding of health, which will be increasingly central to research and public understanding in the coming years. "Evolution and Health" will increase visitors' comprehension of their own health issues by fostering a better understanding of evolution and natural selection. The project will seek to determine whether employing the perspective of natural selection can lead to a deeper understanding of human health.