Lamont-Doherty’s Secondary School Field Research Program: Using Goal-Oriented Applied Research as a Means of Building Comprehensive and Integrated Scientific Understanding

Abstract:

Conventional instruction in science often proceeds from the general to the specific and from text to action. Fundamental terminologies, concepts, and ideas that are often abstract are taught first and only after such introductory processes can a student engage in research. Many students struggle to find relevance when presented information without context specific to their own experiences. This challenge is exacerbated for students whose social circles do not include adults who can validate scientific learning from their own experiences. Lamont-Doherty’s Secondary School Field Research Program inverts the standard paradigm and places small groups of students in research projects where they begin by performing manageable tasks on complex applied research projects. These tasks are supplemented with informal mentoring and relevant articles (~1 per week). Quantitative metrics suggest the approach is highly successful—most participants report a dramatic increase in their enthusiasm for science, 100% attend college, and approximately 50% declare majors in science or technology. We use one project, the construction of a microbial battery, to illustrate this novel model of science learning and argue that it should be considered a best practice for project-based science education. The goal of this project was to build a rechargeable battery for a mobile phone based on a geochemical cycle, to generate and store electricity. The students, mostly from ethnic groups under-represented in the STEM fields, combined concepts and laboratory methods from biology, chemistry and physics to isolate photosynthetic bacteria from a natural salt marsh, and made an in situ device capable of powering a light bulb. The younger participants had been exposed to neither high school chemistry nor physics at the start of the project, yet they were able to use the project as a platform to deepen their science knowledge and their desire for increased participation in formal science education.