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Sam Spence, an Earth Science teacher at King Middle School,
created an educational curriculum guide using actual geographical phenomena
to teach the scientific method in a single-gendered classroom. Lessons developed
address essential leaning objectives such as comparing and contrasting different
fields of earth science, the chronological history of the creation of maps, the use
of sunlight and natural gas as sources of energy, and designing models to illustrate
rock-layer sequence. Mr. Spence will present his project as part of a professional
development session for other science teachers at King Middle School in January, 2006.
“The Mystery of the Amphibians” was the title of the resource
guide created by Priscilla Grinage, a 7th grade life science teacher at Turner Middle
School. During the previous school year, Mrs. Grinage’s students were fascinated
with the phenomenon of the “exploding toads” in Europe. Due to a change in
scheduling, Mrs. Grinage will retain her students from the previous year.
To pique the interest of her students, and to continue the science inquiry process,
lesson plans and units were created to apply the scientific method, organism
classification, reviewing environmental factors which effect the ecosystem, and
creating lab reports of students’ findings. All activities are designed to explain
the untimely demise of the amphibians.
Kippie Roberts and Tina Mangham’s needs assessment revealed
the low math scores students at Forest Park Middle school receive on the CRCT
Standardized Test. This year, students must take and past all sections of the CRCT
to be promoted to the next grade level. Score stratification indicated a need for
improvement in the areas of pattern relationships in algebra and problem solving.
Roberts and Mangham created a resource guide which contained activities teachers
can conduct at the start of each class for additional skills enhancement (also known
as “sponge” activities). Ms. Roberts and Mrs. Mangham presented their project as
a “Best Practices” activity for the GIFT closing workshop
Basic health education is the foundation of knowledge used
to encourage a healthy lifestyle and active lifestyle. Health education may also
be used to introduce key biological concepts to students, illustrating the functions
of bodily organs, the need for adequate muscles mass, and the importance of
proper nutrition. Lisa Thibou and Andrea Conley, physical and health education
teachers at Venetian Hills Elementary School, applied this framework in creating
their resource guide. In order to provide teachers with additional instructional
time, Ms. Thibou and Conley developed concise units on fitness and health promotion.
Where applicable, units were also equipped with physical activities for students.
Adrienne Doans developed a science course for students enrolled
in the Health Science and Research Academy at Carver High School. Mrs. Doans’
resource guide served as the foundation for her new class, “Science Technology and
Society. The goal of the course is to explain how the environment, natural resources,
pollution, human population change, and technological advances affect the health and
well-being of an ecosystem. Units in Mrs. Doan’s resource guide include “The Epidemiology
of an Illness”, “Botched Meat” and “To Irradiate or not to Irradiate…”, a PBL activity to
teach students about food contamination. PBL units will be included on the CASES website
In the needs assessment Wanda Ingram conducted, lack
of self-confidence and low self-esteem were found to negatively affect student’s
performance in science courses. Therefore, Ms. Ingram developed a resource
guide that would teach the students of Sandtown Middle School concepts of earth
science. Using the Georgia Performance Standards for Astronomy, Ms. Ingram’s
resource guide included lab activities to describe the moons’ atmosphere and chemical
structure, the difference between rocks and minerals, and items and patterns that may
effect normal moon cycles. Participation in science extra curricula activities (e.g. Science
Olympiad) and the use of technology were integrated variables used to enhance
students’ self-perceptions.
Alfred Porter, an AP biology teacher at South Atlanta High School,
created a resource guide aimed at increasing South Atlanta student’s student test
scores is genetics and cellular biology, two areas which produce the lowest Annual
Yearly Progress (AYP) scores. Mr. Porter’s resource guide stressed the importance
of process skills within science inquiry and was based on fundamental principles of the
molecular basis of heredity. These activities included students identifying and describing
their physical phenotypes and genotypes to illustrate the concept of dominant and recessive
traits and producing a dragon fly from a random mixture of gene traits found within a
surrogate dragonfly parent.
Lisa Thibou and Andrea Kerr at Venetian Hills Elementary
School worked in collaboration to help develop the lesson plans and units for
the ECCSE Sciencenet website. Both Ms. Thibou and Mrs. Kerr created
projects that focused on integrating public health concepts to elementary and
middle school students in an interdisciplinary manner. Their units provided
basic public health information and resources for students, teachers and parents,
as well as interactive cases and lesson plans on eating disorders, the major food
groups and the food guide pyramid; food nutritional value; and dietary guides and
labels. The Venetian Hills Elementary health and physical education teachers will
teach their implementation plan jointly and simultaneously launch a physical education
campaign at their school. They plan also to elicit the help of other teachers in hopes
of producing a greater impact on the Venetian Hill student body
Jormell Bland, an AP chemistry teacher at Booker T. Washington
High School and a repeat participant of GIFT, created and conducted lab experiments
with Dr. Daphne Norton in the Emory University chemistry department, then transformed
the experiments into hands-on units for her AP chemistry students. Mrs. Bland's experiments
included (1) recycling aluminum to create aluminum by-products and new chemical compounds,
(2) analyzing the strength of the new compounds, and (3) testing for the presence of additional
chemicals within the creation of the new compounds. As indicated by the steps in her action plan,
Mrs. Bland also developed digital videos of herself conducting the experiments to serve as
additional reinforcement for the students while she is teaching the units.
Kippie Roberts, an integrated math teacher at FD Roberts Middle School,
incorporated strategies that will help students see the importance of mathematics in everyday
life. Her projects were created to bridge the gap between abstract and concrete math concepts
for her students since the students find it hard to understand many of the concepts related to
geometry and feel that math is not important. Ms. Roberts created digital images of concrete
objects around campus, such as buildings, driveways and roads, and trees, and dissected them
into as many geometric shapes as possible. She then developed units in which her students
would have to identify the shapes, rearrange the shapes to see if additional objects could be
made from each individual shape, and compare the properties of the first shapes to the newly
created shapes. The students will then have to determine if the new objects they created will be
as sturdy and efficient as the originals objects the shapes were constructed from.
In order to make science more fun and rewarding for her physical science
students, Malaika Jordan created a new format for teaching her 2004-2005 school assigned
subject area. After observing her students lack of interest in physical science, Ms. Jordan
wanted to make the subject seem more enjoyable. Subsequently, Mrs. Jordan created
more than twenty “sponge” or activities done at the start of each class period, which would
pique her students’ interest in the topic matter covered each year by the Atlanta Public
School (APS) End of the Course Test (EOCT). Once Ms. Jordan finished constructing the
lessons, she wanted to use a captive audience to analyze the effectiveness of each newly
created activity prior to the start of the school year. As part of her GIFT assignment, Ms.
Jordan taught her newly developed activities to Southside High School students enrolled
in the 2004 Project Grad Program on the campus of Emory University. Students who
participated in Project Grad take additional summer courses in math, science, and writing
enhancement. These students provided Ms. Jordan with feedback about the effectiveness
of her lessons. Using student feedback, Ms. Jordan was able to revamp activities for fall
implementation. As part of her implementation plan, Ms. Jordan will assist other teachers
with creating “sponge” activities for courses mandated under the EOCT requirements at BTW.
Termerion McCrary was named the Science Department Chairperson
at the start of her GIFT experience and her GIFT project focused on creating tools each
teacher in her department could use throughout the school year. Ms. McCrary, another
repeat GIFT participant, wanted to improve the results of the standardized test results of
the students at Booker T. Washington High School by creating standard teaching units
for each teacher to follow. Standardized test results are used to report a student and
school performance. Students within the State of Georgia must take and successfully
pass each portion of the test. Students at Booker T. Washington High School struggle
the most on the science portion. Georgia Graduation Test (GGT) Resource Guides were
created for the thirteen teachers within the science department by Ms. McCrary. Resource
Guides were created to allow for a GGT activity to be conducted at the start of each science
class period for the first four days of the week in all science subjects. On Fridays, teachers
completed a 20-question assessment on the material covered for the four days. Those who
scored below 75% were given additional lessons to take home and complete over the
weekend. Ms. McCrary created the Resource Guides which contained over 80 units, as
well as the end-of-week-assessments, and the additional work for those who score less
than 75%.
Kenneth Starks, a chemistry teacher at Washington High School,
worked to allow beginning biology students the opportunity to become more familiar
with DNA morphology and the principles of DNA. Mr. Starks produced antibodies for
the num-1 gene in lobsters by designing polymerase chain reactions (PCR) which
were then ligated into commercially available vector system (pGEM) and transferred
into JM109 competent cells. The competent cells were harnessed and cultured on
agar, and the success of the reaction was determined by the presence of white colonies
among blue colonies of cells that did not undergo the transformation. Mr. Stark’s students
will use Drosophila melanogaster as their model as to produce the test crosses which
will demonstrate in part the principles of Mendelian genetics. Once this part of the project is
complete, the students will remove the chromosomes from the salivary glands of fruit fly
larva. Once the chromosomes are isolated, the students will mount them on slides for
observation and create illustrations to compare the major components of genetic theories
from both experiences.
Wanda Ingram, a middle school science teacher in Fulton County,
conducted research on hormones and aggression which was led by Dr. Timothy
Moore and Gillian Small in the Science and Research Department at Clark Atlanta
University. She began her summer research experience by conducting an extensive
literature review on the brain and hormonal affects of the brain for a better understanding
of the research. She then assisted both of her mentors in studying the effect of phytoestrogen
on aggression in hamsters by manipulating different hormones (oxytocin, vasopressin,
corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), and tyrosine hydroxylase) and neurotransmitters to
determine the physiological effects diet manipulations has on the behavior of hamsters. Ms.
Ingram will implement the findings from the research in her Earth Science class by demonstration
real-life applications of science and how the research can be generalized to describe human behavior.
Mrs. McCrary, the long-standing veteran of this teacher group, has completed
two previous GIFT research assignments. In 1999, Ms. McCrary was placed at Clark Atlanta
University under the direction of Dr. Randall Mandock observing the devastating effects of
global warming. The following year, Ms. McCrary worked with Mr. Spence at the Center for
Disease Control enhancing the educational Excellence in Curriculum Integration through
Teaching Epidemiology (EXCITE) website. The material and knowledge gained from both
experiences incorporated into biology and environmental science classes. Ms. McCrary also
utilized the best selling thriller The Hot Zone to convey the importance of science fiction and
inquiry based learning in her classroom. Ms. McCrary offered curriculum support to the web-based
project, and developed a high school unit on the effects of bio-terrorism on the nation.
Adrienne Doanes, who was recently named “Teacher of the Year” at
Therrell High School, completed her first GIFT experience last year under the supervision
of Emory Center for Science Education Director, Dr. Pat Marsteller. Mrs. Doanes’ project
allowed her to develop and integrate physical science concepts into her school’s curriculum.
Her inventive approach allowed her to train teachers on different aspects of teaching
physical science, and to make available a number of other web resources when learning
expansion was needed. To expand upon the success of her creativity, Mrs. Doanes created
a web site with resources and additional curricula for the integrated sciences taught at the
middle school level. Her website allows those who teacher physical science, earth science
and life science the chance to review Mrs. Doanes’ original and adapted worksheets, resources
and teaching techniques.
Two teachers, who participated in the CSE/Chemistry sponsored
NSF Graduate K-12 initiative (see http://www.prism.emory.edu) created websites for
chemistry courses as part of a four-week mini-GIFT experience. Tommy Molden, who
teaches chemistry at Douglass High School and Trion DuBose Arnold chemistry teacher
at Mays High School not only created problems and investigative cases for their classes
but also created websites for the chemistry classes at their schools. With the help of Pat
Marsteller and PJ Gallagher, they learned to use Dreamweaver to create their own websites
with chemistry information, problem sets, scholarship information and lab experiments.
This fall they are using the materials they created and will provide follow-up data on student
receptivity.
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Jormell Bland and Shaundra Mattox
worked with Dr. Kim Gernert of Emory's Biomolecular Computing Resource
Center on an education project. Bland and Mattox worked with Dr.
Kim Gernert to develop an interactive computer event for Georgia's
Science Olympiad, a science competition for high school and middle
school students. The teachers gathered various resources for Dr.
Gernert to use in the development of this event. The resources included
internet sites focusing on biological concepts. These websites will
be placed on a web page for students to use as study materials in
preparation for the event. Bland and Mattox have designed 6 web
search activities to introduce their students to information gathering
on the internet and have made a catalogue of useful websites for
students.
Sharon Eblaghie of Grady High School is working
on a characterization of the Fragile-X homolog (FMR-1) in fruit
flies. She is learning to identify the dFMR-1 gene sequence, chromosome
position, transcription structure and insertions sequence and also
looking at eye phenotype in flies in which the fmr1 gene is defective.
Back in her classroom, Eblaghie used materials (fruit flies) obtained
from the laboratory to help her students examine the life cycle
of fruit flies.
Barbara Durham, a teacher at Milton High School
worked with Dr. Herve Schaffhauser investigating, the mechanisms
of glutamatergic synapses.
Malaika Jordan of Booker T Washington High School worked
with Dr. Keith Easterling, Emory on a project entitled "Does
maternal separation promote morphine sensitization in Long Evans
rat dams? This project is a model of mother/infant separation in
humans. The GIFT fellow assessed the impact of separation for on
rat pups' susceptibility to drug addiction. Rat pups were separated
from their mother for three hours a, 15 minutes, or never. The rats
were injected with morphine and placed in a locomotor box to observe
modification of motor skills, using patterns of locomotion of pups
receiving saline injections as baseline.
Rhonda Montgomery-Stroud worked with Dr.Kim
Huhman, GSU on a project involving the effect of interruption of
circadian rhythm on Syrian hamster response to stress. This project
evaluated the ability of external cues to interrupt the circadian
cycle of the Syrian hamster. Together, with her partner scientist,
Ms. Montgomery-Stroud developed an interactive lesson on circadian
rhythms.
Glenda Thomas worked with Dr. Paul Katz, GSU
on a project using immunohistochemical localization of serotonin
precursor, 5-HT. Thomas used immunofluorescence to localize and
compare the distribution of the serotonin precursor 5-HT in Aplysia
and Trinonia (two types of sea slugs). The focus of the project
was to determine whether there are deleterious effects on exposure
of Trinonia to 5-HTP, a nutritional supplement easily purchased
in stores. Although 5HTP is advertised as an appetite suppressor
and a mood enhancer, preliminary data suggests that it has deleterious
effects on motor neuronal circuits.
Ben Lukowicz of South Gwinnett High School
worked with Dr. Randal Mandock, of Clark Atlanta University. Lukowicz
measured ground surface and radioactive temperatures with contact
and infrared temperature sensors. He assisted in the interpretation
of the temperature data in the context of a regional analysis of
emissivity and ground surface temperature for urban and rural areas.
Melanie Shannon worked with Charles Derby of
GSU on short-term culture of spiny lobster olfactory neurons. Shannon
investigated whether or not olfactory neurons continue to proliferate
once removed from the organism.
Termerion McCrary of Booker T. Washington High
worked with Dr. Randal Mandock, CAU, using Geographical Information
Systems (GIS) to collect ecological data. McCrary learned how to
use a GIS to render models of earth warming patterns. This information
is useful in the determination of optimal times to plant crops and
to evaluate global warming trends. In her class, McCrary used the
Verner Texas Instruments CBL and graphing calculators to collect
data for Ph and airflow in various experiments.
David Parlier worked with Melissa Demetrikopoulos
at GSU. Parlier assisted in preparing and conducting a summer neuroscience
workshop for 5th and 7th grade teachers. He created a review of
over forty neuroscience-related websites. The review includes descriptions
of the intended audience for the site, an evaluation of the resources
and content found at the site, and an overall rating of the value
of the site for science teachers. The information gathered on the
various neuroscience websites will be used as a guide to supplemental
materials for science teachers and will used in developing related-links
for the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience website. In addition,
Parlier developed a module on brain diversity and adaptation for
the BioBus -- a mobile teaching outreach program. On returning to
Sutton Middle School, Parlier facilitated an in-service for all
science colleagues at Sutton Midddle School using materials and
methods from his GIFT summer experience
Michael Saunders, North Gate High School worked
with Rajeshwar Tekmal at Emory. Last summer Michael Saunders is
focusing his research on two studies; genotyping and dosage standardization
of a breast cancer chemo-preventive compound. The genotyping will
involve isolating DNA from an in vivo model for the purpose of identifying
specific transgenes. The dosage standardization is being performed
to study the effects of various concentrations of a specific anti-aromatase
agent on the morphological, histological, and hormonal conditions
of transgenic mice.
Rhonda Saulsberry of Stephenson Middle School
worked with Dr. Sagar Lonial, at Emory. Saulsberry investigated
whether bone marrow or peripheral blood sample yielded the highest
number of CD34+. She is taking samples of each and through a process
called ficolling, removing the white blood cells which allows her
to conducted a variety of tests to see which one resulted in the
greatest yield.
Marvin Morton from Riverdale High School worked
with Dr. Nicola Longo, at Emory on insulin regulation of cell growth.
Oscar Boglin, though not an official GIFT participant
followed the guidelines for the program in continuing his work on
a cancer web site. The web site, intended to inform the general
public on the science of cancer, was started by Dr. Gregg Orloff
of Emory's Biology Department. Other implementation
activities by Mr. Boglin included:
· formed a science speakers series of Emory faculty to visit
classrooms
· incorporated genetics principles into a new genetic course
at high school
· collaborated with mentor twice a month to conduct experiments
· worked with mentor to submit a proposal that was later
funded
· conducted 12 experiments from GIFT summer experience
In 1999 there were eight GIFT teachers working throughout
the Emory campus. Many were return GIFT fellows who wished to continue
their 1998 research which allowed them to have a more in depth research
experience and to make a significant contribution to research effort.
The following are some of the placements:
* Jormell Bland, who teaches chemistry at Booker T.
Washington High School, will assist Dr. Keiji Morokuma in the Emory
chemistry department with computational chemical studies of molecular
systems.
* Oscar Boglin, biology teacher from Booker T. Washington High School
and Dorothea Wilson, biology teacher from Crim High School, will
work with Biology Department faculty members, Dr. Gregg Orloff and
Dr. Walter Escobar to develop a world wide web site about cancer
for patients and their families. The purpose of the site is to provide
simple and clear explanations about how the disease develops, how
it is treated and summaries on the latest cancer research.
*Brenda Brochstein, a general science teacher from Sutton Middle
School has been awarded a research position with Dr. Ron Boothe
of the Emory Department of Psychology and the Yerkes Regional Primate
Research Center to conduct behavioral and neuroanatomical studies
concerning vision and development of vision in primates.
*Robert Hairston, who teaches biology at Cedar Grove High School,
will conduct research on hematopoiesis and bone marrow transplantation
with Emory School of Medicine faculty, Dr. Edmund Waller.
*Michael Saunders teaches biology at Northgate High School and will
conduct breast cancer research with Dr. Rajeshwar Tekmal in the
School of Medicine.
* Vincent Tolbert, a physics and physical science instructor from
Frederick Douglass High School, will work on homology modeling –
making three-dimensional structures from protein molecules –
with Dr. Kim Gernert in the Biomolecular Computing Resources program.
*Cassandra Wilson teaches biology at Redan High School and will
work with Dr. Boots Quimby on nuclear transport.
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