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Under the Microscope............................ By Ann E. Shanahan '59 ............................ |
Science education at Smith was under the microscope, so to speak, during a day-long visit to the campus this fall by nationally recognized scientist Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences. Alberts took a close-up look at the sciences at Smith, ranging from the kinds of research students are doing with faculty members to the peer-mentoring program and outreach projects that involve high school students and teachers. He watched Smith students assisting in the classrooms of the college's laboratory school during science instruction; he visited the Lyman Plant House and the Botanic Garden, where horticulture, plant physiology and plant ecology are taught; and he listened as science majors described the quality of their experience at Smith. For Dr. Alberts, who makes about 12 such site visits a year but who had never visited a women's college before, the day at Smith was packed with impressions and insights. He left with a strong sense of a dynamic faculty whose members have a vital interest in teaching and a thirst for continuous improvement. "Smith exudes a wonderful feeling of community and a sense that the faculty who teach science are part of a team. It is invigorating to see their excitement about teaching science as an inquiry-based process," he said. During a morning visit to the Smith College Campus School he illustrated his strongly held view that science education should focus on inquiry-based learning rather than on memorization and definitions. First-grader Elizabeth Cohen-Scheer was making a picture of an oak leaf when she noticed a little brown blister-like growth on the leaf. Summoned to Elizabeth's desk, Alberts knelt on the floor and, explaining that the blister was really a plant gall, delicately pried it open with his ballpoint pen. "If you cut it open, you might find a little insect inside. The insect lays eggs on the leaf and the leaf grows a little home for the eggs," he said as he and Elizabeth looked through her magnifying glass at the "worm" he had uncovered. "The insect actually is reprogramming the plant's growth. We really don't understand this at all. It's an interesting area of study," said the man who is an authority on the replication of chromosomes and author of a widely used college textbook, The Molecular Biology of the Cell, to the six-year-old girl. At a lunchtime student-faculty panel presentation, Alberts heard Smith students talking about their research experiences. "I've gained confidence in my science ability here that I wouldn't have if I had gone anywhere else," said Andrea Pomrehn '97, who, in three years of working with Steven Williams, professor of biological sciences, has developed a DNA diagnostic technique used in the identification of filariasis, which causes elephantiasis. Pomrehn has applied for a Fulbright grant for next year, which will allow her to test the results of her research in Malaysia. Said another student, Jocelyn Nadeau, also a senior, "You're able to see what research is really like." Nadeau, a chemistry major, has been engaged in a project that involves synthesizing molecules that have unusual structural features. Her experience during two summers of research and this year's honors project, all under the direction of chemistry professor Stuart Rosenfeld, have convinced her that choosing graduate school in organic chemistry is the right next step.
Alberts' itinerary at Smith included a visit to Lyman Plant House, where he spoke with director Kim Tripp (center). Alberts makes about 12 site visits a year, but this was his first trip to a women's college............................. Late in the afternoon, when he delivered the annual Albert E. Blakeslee lecture, Alberts seized the opportunity to link some of what he had seen during the day with his own opinions and concerns about science education. Earlier he had seen clear signs that Smith students who are in training to teach future generations are getting "the right kind of science." A lot of the school systems in this country are teaching the wrong kind of science-focusing on word association and rote memorization-he said, and, worse, standardized tests are reinforcing this kind of learning by posing questions that do not require critical-thinking skills. The National Science Education Standards, which were developed to address these shortcomings in science education at the K12 level, were unveiled earlier this year by the National Research Council, which Alberts chairs. The standards are wide-ranging voluntary guidelines that address curriculum content, teaching methods, teacher education, student assessments, school-wide science education programs and links with the broader educational system. If the real science education that these standards envision were achieved, we might reach the standards' goal of scientific literacy for all people, Alberts believes. "Real science education involves authentic inquiry, independent work and problem-solving," which produce scientific knowledge, Alberts said, but, perhaps more important, promote the sort of rational, analytical thinking that people need to make effective decisions in their everyday lives, participate in civic and cultural affairs and become economically productive citizens. Although "it is fashionable to talk about the end of science, there is no end of science," Alberts said. "There will be more dramatic advances in the next century, and we can't even predict what they will beScience is a central feature of our life and will become ever more so." Alberts, who was educated at Harvard and has taught at Princeton and the University of California at San Francisco, was accompanied on his visit to the college by Susan Goodman '81, a development officer for the National Academy of Sciences. Another Smith connection to the Academy is Florence Sabin, class of 1893, the first woman elected to its membership. The Academy was founded in 1862 as a private, nonprofit organization designated as an official adviser to the federal government on science and technology matters. Election to the 1,710-member group is one of the highest honors a scientist can receive. |
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