Biology Class Breathes New Life Into Science for Teachers
After a year of classes, a week in the laboratory and a day of skin-diving, 40 Los Angeles science teachers graduated Friday from a California State University, Northridge, program that is designed to keep them abreast of the latest advances in biology.
“You have the most important job in the country,” said the program’s director, CSUN biologist Steven Oppenheimer, as he addressed the group at a luncheon. “We won’t be able to compete unless we have the best scientists in the world, and we can’t have the best scientists in the world unless we have the best science teachers.”
The 40 teachers were drawn from public and private high schools, junior highs and several elementary schools in the greater Los Angeles area.
The program was conceived by Oppenheimer, a CSUN biologist whose cancer research has won numerous federal research grants. Two years ago, Oppenheimer was cited as one of two outstanding professors in the California State University system.
85 Teachers in 2 Years
Since its inception, the program has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation. Eighty-five teachers have graduated in the two years the program has been offered.
The goal, Oppenheimer said, is to keep Los Angeles’ science teachers up to speed in a field that is rapidly changing, spurred by such developments as genetic engineering and the increased use of computers in biology and medicine. “Most biology textbooks are out of date within two years,” Oppenheimer said.
Since October, the teachers attended evening lectures every other week in which either a CSUN professor or a visiting scientist described a recent research finding or teaching technique.
Last week the teachers participated in laboratory experiments and field trips. One day they leaned over trays full of spiny sea urchins, which are used to demonstrate the dramatic changes an organism goes through as it develops from fertilized egg to adult.
Genetic Engineering
On another day, they extracted DNA--the molecular strands that contain the genetic blueprint for an organism--from the thymus glands of calves.
They even did some rudimentary genetic engineering, “splicing” genes into rings of DNA and inserting them into bacteria.
On Thursday, about half of the group embarked on a skin-diving excursion to Catalina Island.
“It’s good to see things you talk about in the classroom in their natural habitat,” said Larry Axelrod, who teaches marine biology and biology at Taft High School in Woodland Hills. “When you are teaching full time, it is easy to lose touch with the real world,” he said. “The program revitalized me.”
Talk at the luncheon ranged from a discussion about why soap bubbles are shaped the way they are to a debate over the merits of using a wooden stirrer or a glass rod to separate jellylike DNA from a solution.
Several teachers said the highlight of the year was a lecture last fall by Nobel laureate Francis Crick, a co-discoverer of the entwined spiral structure of DNA. Crick, who now works at the Salk Institute in San Diego, signed each teacher’s certificate signifying completion of the course.
By unanimous consent, another highlight was Oppenheimer’s endless energy. “He makes you feel good about teaching,” said Connie Sparks, a science teacher at Kennedy High School in Granada Hills.
“I was lured here by Francis Crick’s name, but came back because of Steven Oppenheimer,” said Gerald Richer, a science teacher at Lincoln High School in East Los Angeles who helped teach this year’s class after taking the course a year ago.
Richer is co-director of a program called Workshop on Wheels, which allows high school science teachers to show their elementary school counterparts how to conduct simple demonstrations of scientific principles.
A key benefit of the CSUN program is for teachers in the Los Angeles area to share techniques and ideas, Richer said.
Besides giving teachers an overview of biology, the program sometimes has immediate impact in the classroom, several teachers said.
Linda Wexler, a science teacher at Santa Monica High School, introduced the DNA extraction technique in her class last year. It produced the greatest result any teacher could ask for, she said. “I had a student say, ‘That’s the neatest thing I’ve ever done and I’ll never forget it.’ ”
