• Outreach helps participants maximize the quality of their research experience
• How applications cycle through the matching process
• Interview and placement process:
• Things for mentors to consider while reading the application:
• Things for mentors to consider while interviewing:
• Once the applicant is accepted into your lab:
• Things for mentors to consider while planning what your intern will actually do:
• How to prepare for your intern's eventual greater independence:
• Outreach draws on years of experience:
• Anticipating when things may go wrong:
• How the STRAW Course supports the research experience
• The summer program:
• Advanced mentoring:

Outreach helps participants maximize the quality of their research experience.

What are your roles as students, teachers, and mentors in the Science Outreach Program? Each has asked for guidance in understanding their role in the context of the Program. Administratively, Outreach liaisons between schools and the University to ensure that there is a paper trail documenting everyone who gains access to a laboratory. Students and teachers are not accepted into the Program unless and until AFTER they have been matched with a mentor. In other words, it is the mentor's call.

The Outreach Program began in Summer of '92 as a way for scientists to become involved in improving K-12 science education and has remained a robust part of University life ever since. Because of the support of Rockefeller scientists, over a thousand students and teachers have gained at least one summer of mentored, total immersion research experience. Many return but most are novices who may be intimidated by or unaware of basic research techniques and routines. Seasoned mentors have successfully integrated students and teachers with diverse levels of experience and willingly share their stories with potential mentors. For more information see Entering the World of Scientific Discovery.

How applications cycle through the matching process.

Scientists who are contacted directly by students or teachers should refer them to Outreach so they can go through proper University channels. Students, who MUST BE AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD, and K-12 teachers can obtain applications directly from our Web site or by contacting our office. We review applications for completeness and distribute them in groups of 3-5 to potential mentors.

Interview and Placement Process:

BEFORE interviewing with a potential mentor, the applicant:

1. Meets all relevant and legal criteria, e.g. is at least 16 years old and has appropriate vaccinations.
2. Is worthy of the mentor's consideration.

AFTER an interview with a potential mentor that results in a match, the applicant:

3. Completes appropriate safety training.
4. Obtains an ID from Security.
5. Has a social network beyond their host lab of other Outreach participants as colleagues in our ScienTific Reading And Writing (STRAW) Course, Teacher Breakfast Seminars, Monday Afternoon Seminars, and other events.

Potential mentors should let us know if your interview uncovers any concerns such as:

1. Scheduling conflicts - the applicant may not be able to devote at least seven weeks during the summertime; or
2. Research conflicts - the applicant thought they would be here to use the lab's resources and your time for their own research, not the lab's.
3. Scheduling conflicts - Teacher Program: Ideally, Outreach teachers stay for two summers partly to benefit from the experience of returning teachers. However, that is not an absolute because the Program is designed to be flexible. While reviewing an application from a prospective Outreach teacher or interviewing a prospective Outreach teacher, mentors do not need to commit to two summers. We have found other labs that can host a returning teacher if the original Host lab cannot commit for a second summer. Discuss these concerns during the interview. Sometimes it is the teacher who cannot return, or skips a summer, or keeps coming back because we won't let them go!

Things for mentors to consider while interviewing: Discuss options for lab work that you judge to be most conducive to the intern's level and interests to minimize the potential for future disappointments or misunderstandings - on both sides of the bench. Adolescents can be so eager to gain a coveted place in your lab that they might agree to any or all projects you suggest. Be fair about your needs and try to balance them with the need to help the novice eventually design, or carve out, a project for themselves that would still get the work done while they learn techniques within the context of solving a research problem with a beginning, a middle, and an "end" - or some point of closure hopefully before they have to leave. You would be bored too if all you did were assays with no sense of the rationale behind your research. If you are interviewing a student, ask them whether they are planning to do a science fair and discuss possible issues around that. Links to the major science competitions are on the Outreach web site and listed at the end of this guide (see Cautionary Note on Science Fairs). Nothing goes out of the lab without your/your Lab Head's approval. If you are interviewing a teacher, discuss whether you can comfortably commit to one or two summers. While ideal, it is not an absolute for the Program is designed to be flexible. We have found other Host labs for returning teachers if their original lab cannot commit for a second summer. Discuss these concerns during the interview process. Also, sometimes the teacher cannot return, or skips a summer, or keeps coming back because we won't let them go!

Once the applicant is accepted into your lab: Everyone in your lab will be watching, and or watching out for, your intern. Introduce your intern and let your lab mates know why they are there and what they will be doing. Be very clear about phone and computer use, drop-ins by friends (discourage it), safety, roles and responsibilities, lab etiquette, work ethic, schedules, and expectations. They may need to know how to keep a lab notebook and why it is important. Once they feel comfortable in their new setting, please encourage their families to visit. Give them papers to read and encourage them to ask lots of questions. Please include them in lab meetings and lab social events (no alcohol for minors!) and have them present their work at a lab meeting before they return to school. Outreach also provides a Teacher Tutor who is available on a need-to-know basis and at your/your intern's invitation for one-on-one assistance, mainly with STRAW assignments but for other discussions as well. The Teacher Tutor is a 3rd-year Outreach teacher still in their Host lab but specially selected for this position.

Things to consider while planning what your intern would actually do: Enlist the help of the experts in the lab to train your intern in proper techniques and in what must not be touched. While hindsight cautions that you should discuss options for lab work that you judge to be most conducive to your intern's level and interests during the interview, interests may change after they enter the lab. How are we supposed to know what truly interests a novice or where a project discussed months earlier may be now? Once novices realize how tough it is to produce good, clean data, they might decide that research isn't for them. Rarely, however, have we lost an intern or mentor this way.

How to prepare for your intern's eventual greater independence: Don't leave planning to some distant, nebulous time. Be clear that you have to feel comfortable with their technical abilities, understanding, and interest before you can help them take that next step. They have to show that they can do the work and understand what they are doing and why. However, interns must always have a scientist present who takes responsibility for them - so plan for who can help temporarily if you have to be away for any length of time. Interns may NEVER be in the lab alone. They are required to write a Research Report and give a Poster Presentation at the end of the summer, so they should progress as researchers and have a sense of the part their work played in the "big picture." Outreach provides a Teacher Tutor to help with assignments in the ScienTific Reading And Writing Course (STRAW) and is available on a need-to-know basis to both mentors and interns.

Outreach draws on years of experience: Experience since 1992, indicates that really good interns tend to begin on a confused but excited high, maintain their enthusiasm through learning the techniques, glimpse the excitement of doing a real experiment where no one knows the result, make a mistake that they either minimize at the time or, when no results appear, grasp at the end of many weeks of work, get sad and think they don't know anything having broken or discarded important stuff, get over the bad times - with a lot of understanding and encouragement from the lab - roar back and actually learn something and maybe even contribute intellectually to the project. That actually happens over a period of seven weeks - like clockwork.

How the STRAW Course supports the research experience

The summer program: We begin in early July with a luncheon Orientation for all participants: lab heads, mentors, students, and teachers. With July 4th 2007 on a Wednesday, the first week of STRAW begins with Lab Safety and an Orientation BBQ on Thursday, July 5th and two sections of STRAW 1 on Friday, July 6th. The following five weeks, STRAW meets once a week from 9-11 on a Tuesday and is repeated on a Wednesday in order not to interfere with lab schedules. The course extends and enriches the research experience. Interns learn how to read scientific journal articles relevant to their laboratory work. They learn to write in a standard scientific style (Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, and Discussion) that prepares them to complete their required Research Reports and present at a Poster Session on August 16th. Teachers also participate in Thursday Breakfast Seminar discussions of their Action Plans that describe how they will transfer their research experiences into inquiry-based learning in their schools. All participants attend the Monday Afternoon Seminar Series: Topics in Biomedicine. The topic for Summer 2007 will be Translational Research: From Bench to Bedside. Mentors are also welcome at all functions.

Outreach exists to maximize the chances that students, teachers, and mentors will have a positive learning experience. A Rockefeller Postdoctoral Associate Professor and an Outreach Teacher of English created STRAW in 1998. It is team-taught by scientists and master teachers. Outreach provides a Teacher Tutor to help participants with STRAW assignments on a need-to-know basis and at the request of the mentor or interns. The Teacher Tutor is a 3rd-year Outreach Teacher who is experienced in the lab and in the classroom.

STRAW prompts interns with weekly assignments to help prepare them to learn basic skills essential for success in the lab, such as:

1. How do I use the Library and Internet resources?
2. How do I read a journal article - that STRAW provides as a model - for understanding?
1. What is the purpose of this Introduction?
2. What does this gel, graph, table, figure, drawing, photograph tell me?
3. The Rational - why am I doing what I am doing and why is it important?
4. How do I turn my protocol into a Materials and Methods?
5. How do I describe my project in a schematic flow-chart?
6. How do I read a journal article - that my mentor gives me concerning our research - in order to describe it in my STRAW group?

Interns may also come to their mentors with these concerns:

1. I don't think I have any useful Results to report and I have to present at the Poster Session on Thursday, August 16th from 9AM to NOON in Weiss - 17th Floor and all the labs and families will be there. There will be food.
2. My Research Report for STRAW does not require an Abstract but my teachers insist I start with the Abstract and hand it in September for my research class.
3. Surprise, the earliest deadline for a major science fair is October 1st for the Siemens Competition and comes before Thanksgiving for the Intel Science Talent Search Competition. Read my paper because it is due tomorrow and let me know what you think. [Link to pertinent science fair web sites is provided below and on our web site.]

This Guide is also on our web site and distributed at Orientation. Together, the materials introduce issues concerning use and publication of data, specifically:

Your written Research Report is a WORK-IN-PROGRESS that shows the status of your research at the end of the summer. Although the Program supports your work with your mentor, it is expected that you will work with your mentor to write the report and respect issues of confidentiality and rigor. If the work is meant to be submitted for publication in a scientific journal or in a science competition, then a full paper should also be submitted to the Director when the lab head feels that it is ready.

Advanced mentoring: Outreach evaluator and founder of EduChange, Inc., Catherine Saldutti conducted extensive interviews with mentors and lab heads that identified four major themes that may help mentors assist and coach their interns. These questions arise in STRAW and in the teacher seminars. These themes are:

• Being part of a scientific community - Including safety, habits, behaviors, responsibilities, etiquette, work ethic, roles, competition, etc.
• Communicating science - How can one learn to read, write and speak the language of science? What are the protocols and expectations for reporting one's research? How can we communicate our ideas effectively to experts, scientists in other fields, and laypeople?
• Accessing the world of science - How does one become a scientist? What are other science-related career choices? How do students and teachers access scientific information for precollege science education and research? How does the public learn about science? Are lay resources reliable? Who should have access to the scientific world and how much access should they have?
• Using writing to learn science - Outreach teachers learn how they can use our STRAW content combined with writing-to-learn techniques to enhance their ability to use STRAW content, resources, and teaching methods in their own classrooms. RU scientists then team-teach with our Outreach English teacher in the STRAW course to help students and teachers problem-solve and find words for scientific understandings. They learn how to use writing to help them think more effectively about the science driving their research.