What High School Students Learn during Internships in Biology Laboratories

Abstract

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Scientific talent is desperately needed to address challenges we will face globally in years and decades to come. Yet there is evidence from around world that high achieving science undergraduates are becoming increasingly rare (Bohannon, 2007; Clery, 2007; Wood, 2008), though situation for biology may, be less dire than for other sciences. Little is currently known about what might attract students into university biology programs and, from there, into specific careers. How do we increase application rates of high school students in college and university biology (life-science) programs? In particular, how can we increase numbers of women and aboriginals who choose scientific careers in our discipline? These are but two of focal questions for a large interdisciplinary team that brings together natural scientists, scientists, educational and (career) counseling psychologists, and (science, mathematics, technology, literacy) educators as part of one of five centers funded by Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada. One way in which Pacific Center for Scientific Literacy approaches answering focal question is by providing high school students with opportunities to experience firsthand science practice, a form of realizing that the future of school science lies outdoors (Slingsby, 2006). Authentic practice goes beyond simple visits, as in British Salter's Nuffield Advanced Biology visits (e.g., Dunkerton, 2007), because students spend an extended period of time with scientists participating in ongoing research. Although authentic science projects in schools take biology students considerably beyond what they normally do and learn (e.g., Roth & Bowen, 1995), participating in real everyday activity such as scientific research or environmental activism changes psychology of learning all together (van Eijck & Roth, 2007). * Authentic Science & Laboratory Internship As its cognates cognitive apprenticeship and community of practice, authentic science practice has been advocated as a means of assisting students in developing (a) usable and transferable scientific skills and knowledge (b) understanding of sciences as epistemic (knowledge-generating) disciplines (Roth, 1995), and easing fear of entering into science programs. Some universities adopt this approach for introducing their first- and second-year students to teach them fundamental skills of science and process of scientific discovery (e.g., The Center for Authentic Science Practice in Education [http://www.purdue.edu/dp/caspie/]). Our Center has been designed, in part, to provide and study high school student learning (cognitive, psycho-social, emotional, career-related) when students are provided with opportunities for internship experiences in university-based biology laboratories. The notion of authentic practice was created after research had shown that much of what people do in their everyday lives and on job is unaffected by mathematics and science they learned in school (Lave, 1988; Scribner, 1984; Traweek, 1988). A recent study suggests that number of high school courses students take in a subject correlates with their university grade point average in same field, but not with their grade point average in other sciences (Sadler & Tai, 2007). In wake of scientific and anthropological findings, science and mathematics educators began to understand knowledge and skills in terms of practices--the patterned actions scientists and mathematicians deploy in their working lives--rather than as procedural and declarative information stored in their heads (van Eijck & Roth, 2007). Thus, it was proposed that students of mathematics and science engage in activities that bear considerable family resemblance with activities in which scientists, mathematicians, or historians normally are engaged. …