2015 SEP Mentor Shani Frayo, SEP Educators: Beth Gatewood, Genevieve Tremblay
““Learning science is like learning a foreign language. By participating in the Science Education Partnership, teachers explore a foreign country; they get immersed. After a couple of weeks, they have begun to think like the ‘locals’ and see how the research culture really works. As a result, their students gain a better understanding of what science really is and how it influences their daily lives.”
– Nancy Hutchison, Director, Science Education Partnership, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center”
Artists and designers play an increasingly key role in translating and interpreting advances in the sciences. In my role as Resident Research Fellow at Cornish College of the Arts, I am working to create access for myself and other artists and designers to the frontiers of molecular and biomedical science. This past Spring, I was selected to participate in the 2015 Science Education Partnership (SEP). This year-long program activates learning partnerships that link teachers, scientists, and life science research institutions in our Pacific NW region. This hands on experience and the opportunity to build relationships with mentor scientists as well as other educators provided me with a deeper understanding of the field, inspire my work and provide relevant pedagogical approaches to use in my teaching practice and share with my Cornish colleagues. I set up this blog to share my SEP experience at Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center and hop to write about and report on other creative initiatives at the intersection of Art, Design and Science.
Each spring, mentor scientists located at seven SEP partner sites (including Fred Hutch, ISB, Seattle BioTech, Seattle Childrens Hospital, UW Medcial Center) select 25 teachers working in the state of Washington to participate in the Science Education Partnership program. I applied and was very fortunate to be selected as part of the 2015 cohort educators by Shani Frayo who works in the Ollie Press Lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Her lab is devoted to the investigation of novel treatments for hematologic malignancies including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, leukemia, which were diseases both my father and my sister had. As the first Arts Educator to participate in the program, my experience gave me a foundation in molecular biology techniques and concepts and offer an opportunity to broaden my understanding of current methods, discoveries and challenges in the field of cancer research. It was a wild ride for me!….teaching labs that will cover blood-borne pathogen training, DNA restriction enzyme digests, DNA gel electrophoresis, molecular modeling activities, bacterial transformation labs, etc… working in the Press lab with mentor scientist, curriculum development workshops with my cohort, and a final poster session presentation. Time was also spent in the Teaching Laboratory at the Hutchinson Center, where our cohort worked as a group with master SEP Lead Teachers. There we focused on effective ways to use scientific concepts and techniques in the classroom and develop new curricula for the coming school year.
In addition to my own lab work, I was able to explore the various imaging technologies used by researchers, and visiting as many of the labs as I could to learn about what the other 24 teachers are doing with their mentor scientists. Through my work at SEP, I hope to advocate for the development of an SEAP (Science Education & Arts Partnerships) program that could work in much of the same way that the SEP (Science Education Partnership) program does. A Science Education + Art program (SEAP) could pair scientists with practicing artists and designers to convey the excitement, challenge and results of their scientific inquiry with their mentees who can extend the "citizen science" in creative and meaningful ways.
I'm grateful to my colleague, Renee Agatsuma, for encouraging me to apply to the SEP program and to Cornish College of the Arts for the Faculty Development Funding award supporting my participation in the program.