Outreach activities

The outreach program sponsored by the Yale Center for Excellence in Genome Sciences and the Yale Center for Genomics and Proteomics has elements in K-12 education and in undergraduate and graduate research programs. The goal is to expose students to concepts, courses, and research activities that will interest and excite them to pursue a career in research science and genomics in particular. The two anchoring programs are STARS and S.C.H.O.L.A.R. with other K-12 activities being developed and interspersed throughout the year. Students are largely underrepresented minorities in the sciences from the New Have community for K-12. STARS students come from a variety of places as Yale undergraduate recruits.

With the relocation of the equipment for YCGP to the quarters on the 7th Floor of Kline Biology Tower with have been able to largely expand and coordinate our outreach and teaching activities with the Yale Center for Excellence in Genome Sciences (CEGS) http://bioinfo.mbb.yale.edu/array/

Throughout the year CEGS/YCGP sponsor many tours, lab activities, and faculty and staff visits to New Haven Schools to expose students of all ages to research concepts and information about genomics and other sciences. These last two years have seen a healthy increase in these activities.

Below is a partial list of activities that CEGS and YCGP offers to the New Haven community.

  1. TOURS

Lectures and handouts that are accompanied by guided explanatory tours of the Mass-Spec facilities, the HTS screening facility, the microarray facility, and the genomics/sequencing facility located in ESC. These tours can be tailored for different age groups, and interests of the students. For instance we have hosted tours for students learning about the genome projects, others are interested in how drugs are discovered, some need to know about proteins and enzymes. We have also hosted two robotics clubs. We try to design things that will fit the CT Curriculum standards as requested by the teachers.

  1. HANDS-ON EXPERIMENTS

We have designed molecular labs mainly for DNA analysis whereby CEGS and YCGP personnel (Nancy Kerk and Kenneth Nelson) visit the students in their schools to explain the lab and then the students come to do the lab for the afternoon. We have also done labs that involve GM plants and antibodies to detect the transgenic protein.

  1. TEACHER WORKSHOPS

Nancy Kerk has initiated workshops for New Haven and area teachers during 2006. Currently we have 1 weekend workshop for each semester, and this year she ran 2 1 week workshops in the summer. This year we hosted the Connecticut Science Teacher Leadership Academy. This workshop consisted of lectures from Yale faculty members and then in the afternoons the teachers worked with computer based teaching resources. The other workshop hosted teachers from New Haven and the surrounding area. Again faculty members presented lectures in the morning and in the afternoon we had molecular biology labs that were chosen so that they could take these labs and concepts into their classes. The basic molecular biology equipment that was purchased for this workshop is now a loaner collection so teachers can check out things to use in their lab and then return them.

  1. INTERACTIONS WITH OTHER YALE GROUPS

There are many groups on the Yale campus that offer or need outreach activities. This year Nancy Kerk has worked closely with the Office of New Haven and State Affairs to make meaningful connections with teachers and students in the New Haven Community.

S.C.H.O.L.A.R

This program is a well established Yale program that brings students from the Hill Regional Career High School to campus for 3 weeks in the summer.

http://www.yale.edu/onhsa/scholar1.htm#overview

Evolutions

Evolutions, sponsored by the Yale Peabody Museum, is an after school program for students from the New Haven Schools who are interested in science, serious about school, and headed to college. At present, students are involved in a variety of career exploration activities. CEGS will be offering the additional opportunity for these students to get involved in an on-going research project in sponsoring faculty labs. The goal of this program is to get students competitive for college, explore careers, and now to have the chance to get involved in a hands-on research project.

http://www.peabody.yale.edu/education/afterschool.html

Youth Together

Youth Together is a mentoring/tutoring program that pairs Yale undergrads with participating New Haven Wilbur Cross junior and senior students.  This year's theme has been "thinking about the future." Other units on college admissions, essay writing, and career profiles have been offered in this program that has run through Yale for almost 50 years now. Through tours of CEGS facilities and the chance to get involved in a research project in a lab, students can get excited about exploring careers in research.

http://www.yale.edu/yt/about1.htm

Minorities in Medicine Movement (MMM)

This is a new program spearheaded by Yale minority premed students. It is also a mentoring program for New Haven high school students with commitment. CEGS has helped to get this started and will work with teams to exposes them to medicine and research careers. Workshops, presentations, panel discussions, field trips and hands-on research experience through CEGS labs give students a focus and continual mentoring throughout the year in after school activities.