“CASCADING” INTO SCIENCE: LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS AND STUDENTS ARE INTRODUCED TO COLLEGE RESEARCH THROUGH MENTORING PROGRAM

Mona Bradwell, chemistry teacher at Girl's High in Philadelphia-Olney and student Vanessa Wanjeri, a junior, work with Haverford's Professor of Chemistry Rob Scarrow.

Earlier this summer, when teenagers Latasha Anderson and Jacqueline Petroski first entered the laboratory of Associate Professor of Chemistry Fran Blase, they were a bit…overwhelmed.

“We didn’t think we’d know anything about anything,” says Petroski, a junior at Masterman High School in Philadelphia.

But as the weeks progressed and the girls grew more comfortable with the equipment and with Blase and her Haverford student assistants, they began to enjoy the experience of participating in college-level research. Now, says Petroski, “it feels like second nature to us.”

“This is going to be really helpful when I take AP Chemistry next year,” adds Anderson, a senior at Philadelphia’s Simon Gratz High School.

Anderson and Petroski are part of Haverford’s Cascade Mentoring Program, which brings high school students and teachers from the Philadelphia School District to campus to work with Haverford’s science faculty members and students on laboratory projects. Funded by a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the initiative gets its name from the cascading structure of the research teams: they usually consist of a Haverford professor, one or more Haverford students, and a teacher/student team from a Philadelphia high school.

The Cascade Program takes place over the course of four weeks in the summer; generally, high school teachers arrive two weeks prior to their students. “This way, they get acclimated to the College and the research,” says Kim Minor, faculty development coordinator for the Koshland Integrated Natural Sciences Center, who oversees the program. “The goal is for the teachers to mentor their own students as they work on their projects.”

Customarily during the course of the Cascade program, a series of morning workshops is conducted by faculty members for high school teachers throughout the Philadelphia area, not just those participating in Cascade. Topics have included high-performance scientific computing, evidence for the Big Bang origin of the universe, and microbial communities. “The teachers walk away with something new to bring to their classrooms,” says Minor.

This year, teachers and students are working alongside three professors—Blase, Professor of Chemistry Rob Scarrow, and Associate Professor of Computer Science Dave Wonnacott—and five Haverford students.

Haverford professors are eager to share their expertise and equipment with Cascade participants. “I became interested in the program because it seemed like a fantastic opportunity for Haverford to build connections to area high school teachers and students,” says Blase. “This is a great opportunity for teachers and students in Philadelphia high schools to work in research laboratories and hopefully gain some experience and knowledge in the scientific disciplines.” Her team is working on two projects: One involves the synthesis of an insect pheromone used for chemical communication, and the other involves synthetic studies on model systems to explore the antibiotic activity of natural products.

Past participants in Cascade, both teachers and students, found that the program enhanced their skills and expanded their minds. Alan Bronstein, a chemistry teacher at Philadelphia’s Central High School, and his student worked last year with Dave Wonnacott, acting as advisors on the professor’s software project and determining what was needed to make the program most usable. “From this experience, I learned that what I should be training my students to do is become problem solvers,” he says. “Haverford professors felt it was more important for students to properly analyze a problem and find a solution than simply absorb the content of the course.” He was also impressed with Haverford students: “Their openness and desire to learn is refreshing to see.”

Mamatha Chary, a senior at Central High, assisted Associate Professor of Biology Rob Fairman last year on a project involving peptide synthesis. Fairman and his undergraduate guided her through the project but also gave her a great deal of autonomy: “Once they showed me how to do a certain task, they let me do all of it on my own to get hands-on experience. Most other labs where I worked were hesitant to let me use their equipment and tools, but at Haverford I got to see and do everything.”

Before coming to Haverford, Chary had her heart set on becoming a doctor. Her ambitions haven’t changed, but her options have broadened. “Working in a college lab has made me realize how interesting research can be as well. I hope one day to be able to do both,” she says. “Right now I am working in a different lab during the summer, and my co-workers are surprised at all the things I've already learned at Haverford.”