Xiaorong Liu / Biology and Psychology

While teaching and advising Biology, Psychology, and Neuroscience majors at UVA, I’ve noticed that only a very small number of students have ever considered career paths other than going to medical school or graduate school. At the same time, with my personal interactions with elementary school teachers, I’ve found that many science teachers in elementary and middle school are eager to provide their classrooms a real sense of “doing science” in a contemporary research laboratory environment, and also to update their content knowledge in neuroscience (my area of focus) with new technology and discoveries/breakthroughs. Therefore, for my Mead Dream Idea, I propose to bridge the gap mentioned above by providing UVA undergraduate students a combined exposure of science education in middle school.  Therefore, my proposed Mead Dream Idea will have three main components:

First, I will host a science-education seminar in 2019 Fall or early Spring 2020 for Biology, Psychology, or Neuroscience majors. I will invite the Head of School and Stem teachers from Peabody School in Charlottesville to present their first-hand teaching experience in elementary and middle schools followed by a group discussion on career advice on secondary science education. The meeting will take place on a week day evening, with light dinner served to encourage participation by all interested students. The theme will also tie tightly with the Neuroscience outreach program organized by UVA undergraduate students.

Secondly, I will invite 4-10 undergraduate students with strong interests in scientific research and education to participate as Undergraduate Fellows in 2020 spring. We will design and organize a curriculum of “Neuroscience Research Day” for 20-30 middle school students. The curriculum will include: (1) short presentations by Undergraduate Fellows to give an overview of neuroscience research and also specific topics, (2) organizing lab tours in the Neuroscience suite in Gilmer Hall, and (3) developing a teaching plan to perform brain dissections, sectioning of neural tissues, making slices, imaging, and writing reports. We will collaborate with Stem teachers in middle school during the curriculum designing process in order to foster interactions between undergraduate students with local science teachers, and also to bring research and scientific tools into the K-12 classroom.

Thirdly, we will invite 20-30 middle school students for the “Neuroscience Research Day” on ground in a weekday in mid/late spring 2020. Undergraduate Fellows will do presentations to introduce Neuroscience/Brain Research in general, followed by Neuroscience tours in different research labs, and then hands-on experience of brain dissection, imaging, and writing lab reports.

I hope this will serve as an inspiration and career options for those who may start to consider a career in secondary science education, and also create new interaction between science and science education.

Proposed Budget:

(1) For part I: pizza dinner, snacks and beverages serving about 20 students + 4-5 teachers/presenters: $200 for seminar night; and an honorarium for Middle school teachers: $30 × 4 teachers = $120. A total of $320.

(2) For Part II: Lab materials for brain dissection: sheep brains ($60 / brain × 20 = $1200), and teaching tools (about $500), which leads to a total of $1700. About 10 brains will be used by Undergraduate Fellows to learn themselves so they can do demos for part III. The other 10 brains will be used for teaching middle-school students. We will design the curriculum with Undergraduate Fellows, $500 will be used for new teaching tools, demos, and experiment supplies such as dissecting tools.   

(3) For part III: on-ground lunch (~10 undergraduates + 30 middle-school students and teachers): $500; Extra Teaching and lab materials: $300.

TOTAL

$320 + $1700 + $800 = $2,820.