A group of 16 science teachers from area school districts got to be students last Thursday when they took part in a hands-on professional-development workshop in the chemistry laboratories at the Dana Mohler-Faria Science & Mathematics Center.
The event was the inaugural open lab night for high school and middle school teachers, offered by the chemistry department with funding from BSU’s Center for the Advancement of STEM Education (CASE).
The teachers performed experiments designed to expose them to new teaching methods and research equipment, guided by BSU chemistry professors Edward Brush, Tammy King, and three BSU undergraduate chemistry majors serving as lab assistants, Keri Bryson, ’18, Nathan Ivanowsky, ’17, and Jesse Witcher, ’17.
“This is great. I’m so glad they have this program,” said Irene Derocher, a chemistry teacher from Brockton High School. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for teachers to actually take the role of students and learn some new techniques.”
Ariel Serkin, a chemistry teacher from Stoughton High School, said she appreciated “the hands-on activities that relate to the real world that you can bring back into the classroom.”
Ms. Serkin was part of a team of teachers that performed experiments mimicking the real-life work of extracting and identifying pesticides in water. In another lab, a separate team synthesized aspirin using microwaves.
The workshop, which professors Brush and King would like to offer two or three times a year, is an outgrowth of existing outreach programs that the chemistry and other BSU science departments have initiated with CASE funding, including the popular community open lab nights each fall and spring.
Dr. Brush said the intent is to enable teachers to do experiments with BSU’s specialized instruments, and to help them plan similar experiments with the equipment of their own classrooms. It is also hoped that by conveying what they have experienced at BSU, the teachers might inspire their students to pursue science as a career.
The BSU students benefit because “they love science and they get to interact with teachers who also love science,” Dr. Brush said, “and they get to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to helping their colleagues.”
Jesse Witcher said he plans to become a high school teacher “so any opportunity I have to teach teachers how to bring some of these labs into the schools I’m really interested in.” (University News)
