Although our main focus is on research and scientific discovery, one thing I’ve also been thinking about is how our lab can contribute to getting younger students excited about science. I mainly ask because I’m hoping to get advice on the following question - what are some good RNA-related experiments for a high school level student?
“Scientific Outreach” is about making the general public aware of our activities and results, which can be achieved in various ways. A typical example is joining open seminars for the public. Another example is giving younger kids the chance to get involved in scientific research. This is something I saw often when I was a postdoc in the USA - it wasn’t unusual to see a high school student volunteering to work in the lab to gain some experience. Sure, one of the main motivations may have been that it looks good on a college application, but hey, at least they were in the lab and getting some exposure to science!
I noticed there is a special feature on “Scientific Outreach” in the latest issue of the Quarterly Magazine from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) (No 34, 2010 Winter edition). The first paragraph of this article ends with a clear message for scientists receiving government research funds following the recent shake-up in government budget programs:
“In short, greater outreach efforts will be expected from them.”
This matches one of the things we’ve been trying to do in our lab, so hopefully we’re on the right track...
I’m proud to say that here in Japan, we’ve successfully hosted several outreach events for young students. Groups of preschool, primary school and junior high school kids have all joined our lab for an afternoon (after nervous preparation putting all the chemicals out of arms reach and taping up the cabinets/drawers!). All kids carried out their own DNA extractions from broccoli (the DNA strands are clearly visible at the end!), took a look at their own cheek cells under the microscope to see nuclei where the DNA is, and ran various plant DNA samples on an agarose gel. Fun stuff, but also challenging....explaining DNA or plant biology to young kids and their parents is a valuable lesson in communicating science to the general public!
Primary school students in the lab
Based on the success with the above events, we were looking for a way to step it up a bit and do something similar to what I saw in the US - create an environment where even a high school student could be part of the lab.....
Fortunately, we have recently become involved a new program that places high school students in a research lab for a year - the “Future scientist training program” (未来の科学者養成講座：Mirai no kagakusha yousei kouza). Our lab investigates a parasitic nematode that attacks and modifies plant roots. We mainly focus on the molecular mechanisms used to modify host cells and establish an infection sites by the parasitic nematode. The project for the student who joined our lab (Rintaro, 1st yr of high school) looks at the problem from a different angle - how does the nematode respond to nearby plants and manage to find host tissue? Importantly, this means he has his own independent project and works alongside other undergrad and postgrad students in the lab, rather than simply helping others with their projects. It’s also a lot of fun as he develops behaviour assays etc and moves individual nematodes around in different sterile conditions. It seems to be working - he is enjoying the science and clearly thinking about the research problems at hand.
So, now I’m wondering if its possible to introduce students to some more complicated topics at the same time. I’m not yet thinking about a proper project, but more some kind of fun experiments to do on the side that I can also do with other young students or members of the general public who may visit our lab in the future. Which brings me back to the question I started with - any hints on some good experiments for people of high school level that would help get them excited about “RNA science”?
Time for me to take a look on google....
links:
research overview (japanese)
PDF copy of newspaper article (2 Mb)
”Outreach" activity is of course good for primary scientists, but also good for ourselves. We researchers tend to be short-sighted, and sometimes too optimistic or too pessimistic. Interaction with people from the outside world surely changes us. I really appreciate and respect your effort!!
ReplyDeleteShinichi
It is pretty great that high school students and elementary pupils learn what is science lab. Usually Japanese kids lack such a chance and those who wants to be a researcher get to know real experiments and science only after they join the lab in the senior or junior year of the University. Is is sometimes even after finding their life-time work. I also respect your efforts and hope that similar activities would widely spread to other universities.
ReplyDeleteFor experiments of "RNA science", GFP fluorescence could be a catchy stuff. If you have a good system to visualize RNA stability or translational activity by GFP, it may be a candidate. I also remind visualized alternative splicing in nematodes by Kuroyanagi et al (Nat. Protoc. 2010, 9:1495-517).
Yuji Kageyama