NanoCollege program gets urban youth interested in science, college study |
On Board Online • August 20, 2012
By Cathy Woodruff
Senior writer
In a lab at the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Sciences, a half-dozen middle school students from the Newburgh Enlarged City School District were taking turns viewing ultra-small cells and proteins through a fluorescent microscope. Graduate student Rick Hynes explained that a blue light helped to “excite” molecules on a slide and make otherwise invisible things visible.
“Awesome! I can actually see the vapor,” one student exclaimed as he examined a slide through the lens of the sophisticated instrument, valued at $25,000 to $50,000.
That kind of reaction was exactly what professors and graduate students at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the State University at Albany had hoped to inspire in more than 30 Newburgh middle schoolers on that July day.
The Newburgh students spent a week this summer living in dorms at the University of Albany, mixing with college student mentors and trying their hand at real-world science, technology and arts projects.
Too often, urban middle schoolers know nothing about college and do not view attending college as even a remote possibility, said Joseph Bowman Jr., executive director of the Center for Urban Youth and Technology at UAlbany, which co-sponsored the summer program with the NanoCollege’s Institute for Nanoscale Technology and Youth (INTY).
“As a matter of fact, they live in a four-block radius,” said Bowman, a former member of the state Board of Regents. “The idea is to get them out of that four-block radius and get them to a university.”
While one group was using at the fluorescent microscope, another was building remote-control airplanes and another was in a molecular biology lab learning how to extract DNA from a banana.
Meanwhile, some students chilled out during downtime with doctoral student Mary Graham, who talked about her own college journey studying math and science and encouraged them to think about science careers in line with their own interests.
“Do you play video games?” she asked. “How would you like to create some of those video games?”
Graham, a young black woman with an outgoing demeanor and a friendly smile, said she wishes she’d been able to meet adult role models involved with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) when she was a child. If she had, she said, she might have been quicker to recognize the possibilities she eventually embraced.
Graham, who was a math major in undergraduate school, said she worked hard to master the physics requirements necessary for a graduate degree in the emerging field of nanobiology. “I had to play catch-up for a while,” she said. “It was a challenge.”
Students from Albany, Schenectady and Troy school districts also participate in INTY programs, which are open to New York districts interested in partnering with the college to work with at-risk students, said Robert Geer, vice president for academic affairs and chief academic officer at the NanoCollege.
Newburgh fits the demographic that INTY is designed to serve. Enrollment in the urban Hudson Valley district is 11,600. Some 70 percent are black or Latino, and 63 percent are from families with incomes that make them eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.
“The focus of this has always been with an eye toward ‘at risk’ students,” Geer said. “The idea is to give them an immersion type of experience in terms of a career path.”
This is the third year that Newburgh has used federal Title I grant money to send students to the week-long intensive INTY session. Enrollment is competitive, and most slots are reserved for students with lower scores on standardized math and English tests, said Anthony Grice, grants development assistant for Newburgh.
At the NanoCollege, middle school students walk the same halls as more than 2,500 employees who have college educational credentials ranging from Ph.D.s to two-year associate degrees.
For instance, the NanoCollege employs between 200 and 300 technicians to keep clean room equipment running, Geer said. While the workers are critical players in the research done there, he said, they do not need advanced degrees to do the work.
It’s the kind of job many promising urban students might consider, while others might strive for advanced degrees.
“We try to give them some context so they can see high school math and science as part of a career path,” Geer said.