Students in 14 underfunded Los Angeles schools will be receiving
an unexpected donation to their science classes ““ a scanning
tunneling microscope which would cost $100,000 to $280,000 retail
price.
Thanks to UCLA’s Science Outreach Program, graduate and
postdoctoral students on campus voluntarily built the microscopes
for about $1,000 each, and trained Los Angeles Union School
District high school teachers on using them in experiments that
they hope will attract more students to science.
Sponsored by the California NanoSystems Institute on campus, the
UCLA Community Partnership Foundation (commonly referred to as UCLA
in LA) and the Dreyfus Foundation, the program introduces current
and relevant scientific subjects in experiments students can do in
the classroom.
They also collaborate with the Graduate School of Education and
Information Studies to send flyers to local teachers, who
voluntarily attend workshops for experiment ideas for their
classrooms and to fulfill continuing education requirements.
The scanning tunneling microscope experiment was the sixth
workshop this year, the second academic year of the program.
Experiments this year included creating a solar cell and a
technique commonly used to make computer chips called
photolithography.
The microscope allows magnification of objects that are smaller
than light waves and are therefore too small to be seen with light.
The microscope drags a fine tip across a surface in a process
analogous to Braille, nearly touching the specimen being studied so
that electrons hop the gap to the specimen. The microscope’s
tip scans the surface, and variations in the distance to the
specimen allow the computer to map its image.
Funding shortfalls and standardized test score requirements in
the Los Angeles school district make it difficult for many high
schools to introduce experiments into the classroom, something that
the Science Outreach Program is trying to ameliorate.
“A lot of L.A.-area high schools don’t do
experiments,” said Sarah Tolbert, associate professor in
chemistry and biochemistry in charge of coordinating the
program.
In Los Angeles, high school science teachers are required to
teach standardized test material, Tolbert said. “Teachers and
students don’t get a lot of modern science in high schools,
and as a result nobody wants to do science.”
Tolbert said she hopes the high-tech and diverse experiments the
program introduces will increase student interest in science,
something she said needs to be done before students enter
college.
“We should be taking the cool science that we know how to
do and using it. … That’s how you make the next generation
of scientists ““ by getting them excited about
science.”
Teachers who have already performed the experiments in their
courses say it is working.
Tom Canny, a science teacher at Verdugo Hills High School, said
his students were very interested in the experiments because the
real-world technology is something they could potentially work with
themselves.
“Unlike in some situations, they were very
responsive,” he said.
Ellen Collins, who teaches science courses at Grant Senior High
School, said she thought it was important to keep students excited
about science while they are in high school.
“They’re seeing the connectivity of science. So they
see the real-world application,” she said. Collins added that
LAUSD schools would never have the resources to introduce such
technology into the classroom, but that it is exactly what students
could benefit from exposure to.
“It’s cutting edge science (that) generally (a
student) that’s in high school now is going to have a shot at
a career (in),” Collins said.
Special education courses also had success with some of the
program’s experiments.
Charlie Schwartz, a special education teacher from Los Angeles
High School, said he was satisfied with past experiments, and
believed the microscope would be successful.
“This is good with special ed kids because it’s
tactile,” he said.
Adam Braunschweig, a fourth-year chemistry graduate student who
came up with the idea to build the scanning tunneling microscope
and built the prototype, said he took on the challenging project
because he hoped to get across the idea that such technology was
accessible.
“Every school has the problem that science is not
presented in an interesting way,” he said. Braunschweig said
the project was not directly related to his field, and compared
himself and other organic chemists to cooks.
“If we can build it, anyone can build it,” he said.
“None of this has anything to do with organic
chemistry.”
Braunschweig said he did not believe all students would be
interested in nanoscience, but that the exposure was valuable.
“At least the opportunity is there so if they are interested,
it gives them something to pursue.”
Graduate students also said they personally benefited from the
learning experience the program provided.
Avik Chakravarty, a postdoctoral scholar with the NanoSystems
Institute, said he rarely gets to teach, but that the program
allowed him to contribute to teaching indirectly.
“It’s actually quite rewarding to work in a group
and actually get something going,” he said. “The
teachers seem very enthusiastic and seem to get a lot out of
it.”
Jason Belitsky, a postdoctoral scholar who worked on the
microscope and other experiments in this workshop series, said the
program seems to be working, but also seems under-utilized.
“One of our frustrations is that (the program) works great
for the people that show up, but we haven’t gotten the
turnout we’d hoped for from the teachers.”