Post by blackcrowheart on Apr 25, 2006 15:43:18 GMT -5
Native Magnet School (edu)
Introducing science to School 19
UB students, faculty reach out to middle-schoolers at after-school
program
By MARY COCHRANE
Contributing Editor
The Native American Magnet School, with its three stories of brick
walls, stands tall at the intersection of West Delavan and West avenues
on Buffalo's West Side. On a chilly April afternoon, a welcome sun
shines brightly on an abandoned house across from the school's front
entrance, making its broken-glass windows even darker while its green
shingles appear as a glaring white, save for the black graffiti messages
scrawled below. Nearby, a group of four young men stand defiantly in the
middle of the intersection, half-heartedly shoving each other, no
traffic to interrupt them.
Inside the school, 17 middle-school students are making "slime" in their
choice of colors—blue being the most popular—during an after-school
program made possible for them by a group of UB professors and students.
Their excited voices grow to a loud buzz as their guest
instructor-chemistry professor Joseph A. Gardella—shouts over the noise,
"Nobody wants to make green slime?" His assistants, two UB graduate
students, pour clear liquids and drops of food coloring into each
child's plastic cup for mixing.
Chemistry professor Joseph Gardella (top) consults with Raena McIntyre
on the results of a color-separation experiment. Monica Ocasio (left)
and Tiffany Spruce make "slime" during a recent session of an
after-school program conducted by UB students and faculty that is
designed to introduce middle school students at the Native American
Magnet School to the wonders of science.
Many of the students don't know Gardella is a well-known environmental
activist and recent recipient of a 2005 Presidential Award for
Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, presented
to him at the White House by the National Science Foundation in
November. A group of girls in the second row have a question, and,
uncertain of how to address him, call out "Mister Science Person!"
Several times, School 19 science teacher Heather Maciejewski has to call
for quiet, not because the students are misbehaving but because their
animated chatter makes it hard for them to hear the next steps of the
experiment. Even with her admonishments, the classroom is never quiet
for long. Maciejewski is in good spirits, however, because four sets of
parents or relatives have come for this afternoon's "parents day" class.
"That's a lot for this school," Maciejewski said. "We have PTO meetings
and only one parent attends."
Maciejewski has taught at the school—officially known as Buffalo's
School 19—for seven years, the last two housed at another city school
while 19 was completely renovated in a city public schools
reconstruction project. Now, the 7th and 8th graders have a
state-of-the-art science laboratory in addition to other new classrooms.
The K-8 school has 600 students in all; 90 percent of its students are
minorities and live at or below the poverty level.
UB "adopted" the school last year after Gardella met Maciejewski when
she participated last summer in his Research Institute for Biomedical
Materials, Science and Engineering for undergraduates, which studied how
drug delivery can assist in tissue engineering and growth.
Rachael D. Brust, a UB junior biochemistry and biophysics major, and one
of a dozen or so university students who volunteers at School 19,
remembers Maciejewski wanted to transfer what she was learning at the
summer program to her students.
"Heather really cares about her students and makes a difference in their
education," Brust said. "Many of her students come from troubled
backgrounds and don't have the support from home that they need. Many of
them have no plans to continue their education after high school—if they
graduate from high school at all. Also, middle school is an age when
many poor minority students lose interest in science. Our connection
with Heather provided a great opportunity to try this outreach."
Alexander N. Cartwright, professor of electrical engineering, said
initially he had to perform "a bit of arm-twisting" to convince his
students to volunteer in the School 19 program—for which they receive no
pay and no academic credit—but now they "just do this on their own."
"I requested my students to become involved, partly because students in
middle school will identify better with people who are closer to their
age," he said. "They seem to be sincerely interested in introducing
science and engineering to the students and really enjoy the time spent
there."
Cartwright said he supports the program in part because he identifies
with the School 19 students.
"I became involved because I believe that knowledge of science and
engineering careers and the people that pursue these fields is essential
to bringing kids into science. I grew up in a poor country, the Bahamas,
and went to a public school where there were very limited resources—no
science was taught. When I was a kid, it was a math teacher who inspired
me and made me realize that a math-related career would be possible," he
said. "This personal experience makes me very sensitive to the fact that
there are many future scientists and engineers in this country—we just
need to find them."
The after-school program is the first step in giving the School 19
students confidence that they can pursue these fields, Cartwright added.
"The program provides the middle-schoolers with the opportunity to
realize that scientists and engineers are real people—just like them. I
think this is much more important than any science that they learn. They
see graduate and undergraduate students that are not the 'geeks' that
scientists and smart people are portrayed as in movies. I think that
they then can go to bed at night and dream that they can be scientists."
Brust said that having college students as program assistants brings the
middle-schools closer to the idea that they, too, can pursue careers in
science.
"In middle school and high school, you learn a lot about the facts and
ideas of scientific principles and systems, but you never learn anything
about what it would be like to have a career in science. Your science
teacher might be a very intelligent, great person, but they still are
seen as a teacher, not a scientist."
Gardella doesn't want to lose the School 19 students either, and hopes
to continue the program, despite its lack of formal funding. He said UB
"missed the cut by one" on a National Science Foundation grant he
applied for last year to fund the program. While he continues to seek
other funding sources, he uses his presidential award money to pay for
supplies.
Today, these include pizza and pop in honor of parents day, as well as
the materials for making the "slime," which Gardella, nearly shouting,
tries to tell the students—now talking again—they will use next month
for planting seeds to observe how slime's components assist plants as
they grow.
But many of the students don't hear him because they are too busy
watching another "experiment" by one of the boys, Zachariah Thornton,
who is stretching and flattening his slime into an eye mask, which he
shows off proudly to his brother, Ernest, and the others. Gardella,
smiling, goes off to grab a piece of pizza before it is gone.
Introducing science to School 19
UB students, faculty reach out to middle-schoolers at after-school
program
By MARY COCHRANE
Contributing Editor
The Native American Magnet School, with its three stories of brick
walls, stands tall at the intersection of West Delavan and West avenues
on Buffalo's West Side. On a chilly April afternoon, a welcome sun
shines brightly on an abandoned house across from the school's front
entrance, making its broken-glass windows even darker while its green
shingles appear as a glaring white, save for the black graffiti messages
scrawled below. Nearby, a group of four young men stand defiantly in the
middle of the intersection, half-heartedly shoving each other, no
traffic to interrupt them.
Inside the school, 17 middle-school students are making "slime" in their
choice of colors—blue being the most popular—during an after-school
program made possible for them by a group of UB professors and students.
Their excited voices grow to a loud buzz as their guest
instructor-chemistry professor Joseph A. Gardella—shouts over the noise,
"Nobody wants to make green slime?" His assistants, two UB graduate
students, pour clear liquids and drops of food coloring into each
child's plastic cup for mixing.
Chemistry professor Joseph Gardella (top) consults with Raena McIntyre
on the results of a color-separation experiment. Monica Ocasio (left)
and Tiffany Spruce make "slime" during a recent session of an
after-school program conducted by UB students and faculty that is
designed to introduce middle school students at the Native American
Magnet School to the wonders of science.
Many of the students don't know Gardella is a well-known environmental
activist and recent recipient of a 2005 Presidential Award for
Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, presented
to him at the White House by the National Science Foundation in
November. A group of girls in the second row have a question, and,
uncertain of how to address him, call out "Mister Science Person!"
Several times, School 19 science teacher Heather Maciejewski has to call
for quiet, not because the students are misbehaving but because their
animated chatter makes it hard for them to hear the next steps of the
experiment. Even with her admonishments, the classroom is never quiet
for long. Maciejewski is in good spirits, however, because four sets of
parents or relatives have come for this afternoon's "parents day" class.
"That's a lot for this school," Maciejewski said. "We have PTO meetings
and only one parent attends."
Maciejewski has taught at the school—officially known as Buffalo's
School 19—for seven years, the last two housed at another city school
while 19 was completely renovated in a city public schools
reconstruction project. Now, the 7th and 8th graders have a
state-of-the-art science laboratory in addition to other new classrooms.
The K-8 school has 600 students in all; 90 percent of its students are
minorities and live at or below the poverty level.
UB "adopted" the school last year after Gardella met Maciejewski when
she participated last summer in his Research Institute for Biomedical
Materials, Science and Engineering for undergraduates, which studied how
drug delivery can assist in tissue engineering and growth.
Rachael D. Brust, a UB junior biochemistry and biophysics major, and one
of a dozen or so university students who volunteers at School 19,
remembers Maciejewski wanted to transfer what she was learning at the
summer program to her students.
"Heather really cares about her students and makes a difference in their
education," Brust said. "Many of her students come from troubled
backgrounds and don't have the support from home that they need. Many of
them have no plans to continue their education after high school—if they
graduate from high school at all. Also, middle school is an age when
many poor minority students lose interest in science. Our connection
with Heather provided a great opportunity to try this outreach."
Alexander N. Cartwright, professor of electrical engineering, said
initially he had to perform "a bit of arm-twisting" to convince his
students to volunteer in the School 19 program—for which they receive no
pay and no academic credit—but now they "just do this on their own."
"I requested my students to become involved, partly because students in
middle school will identify better with people who are closer to their
age," he said. "They seem to be sincerely interested in introducing
science and engineering to the students and really enjoy the time spent
there."
Cartwright said he supports the program in part because he identifies
with the School 19 students.
"I became involved because I believe that knowledge of science and
engineering careers and the people that pursue these fields is essential
to bringing kids into science. I grew up in a poor country, the Bahamas,
and went to a public school where there were very limited resources—no
science was taught. When I was a kid, it was a math teacher who inspired
me and made me realize that a math-related career would be possible," he
said. "This personal experience makes me very sensitive to the fact that
there are many future scientists and engineers in this country—we just
need to find them."
The after-school program is the first step in giving the School 19
students confidence that they can pursue these fields, Cartwright added.
"The program provides the middle-schoolers with the opportunity to
realize that scientists and engineers are real people—just like them. I
think this is much more important than any science that they learn. They
see graduate and undergraduate students that are not the 'geeks' that
scientists and smart people are portrayed as in movies. I think that
they then can go to bed at night and dream that they can be scientists."
Brust said that having college students as program assistants brings the
middle-schools closer to the idea that they, too, can pursue careers in
science.
"In middle school and high school, you learn a lot about the facts and
ideas of scientific principles and systems, but you never learn anything
about what it would be like to have a career in science. Your science
teacher might be a very intelligent, great person, but they still are
seen as a teacher, not a scientist."
Gardella doesn't want to lose the School 19 students either, and hopes
to continue the program, despite its lack of formal funding. He said UB
"missed the cut by one" on a National Science Foundation grant he
applied for last year to fund the program. While he continues to seek
other funding sources, he uses his presidential award money to pay for
supplies.
Today, these include pizza and pop in honor of parents day, as well as
the materials for making the "slime," which Gardella, nearly shouting,
tries to tell the students—now talking again—they will use next month
for planting seeds to observe how slime's components assist plants as
they grow.
But many of the students don't hear him because they are too busy
watching another "experiment" by one of the boys, Zachariah Thornton,
who is stretching and flattening his slime into an eye mask, which he
shows off proudly to his brother, Ernest, and the others. Gardella,
smiling, goes off to grab a piece of pizza before it is gone.