Robin William Rockhold

Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Mississippi Medical Center

2500 North State Street Jackson, MS 39216-4505
 

Base Pair is a biomedical mentorship program which trains Jackson Public High School students and teachers in cooperation with the University of Mississippi Medical Center. The program is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and has been in place since 1993. Academic credit for a preparatory class conducted at Murrah High School in Jackson has been awarded from the Mississippi Department of Education. This class prepares students to participate in a semester of biomedical research laboratory activities at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. A total of 56 students have participated in the program since 1993. Eighteen scientific abstracts with students as co-authors have been produced, and two full student co-authored scientific publications have been published. Teacher development efforts have resulted in training of five science teachers and the preparation of three science course lesson plans. Evidence that the Base Pair program is beginning to affect school-wide educational improvement is provided by increases in state-wide examination scores and science fair award frequency. Cooperative mentorship-based educational initiatives are a viable means of interaction between university-level educators and secondary schools.
 

Key Words: Mentorship, science education, K­12 teaching, curriculum development
 

"As for the future, your task is not to foresee, but to enable it."

(De Saint-Exupery, 1992)
 

Science, as a discipline, is inextricably founded on the institution of mentorship. The term, mentor, is derived from the Greek given name, "." Mentor was the steward of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, who was entrusted with the guidance and teaching of the son of Odysseus, Telemachus, while Odysseus was engaged in the Trojan War. The training provided by Mentor was later extended as Athena, the Goddess of War and patroness of the arts and industry, took the guise of Mentor and guided him in his search for his lost father. The modern concept of the mentor is more directly tied to the French, from the 17^th century romance, Telemaque, by Fenelon, in which a prominent role was assigned to "mentor." The mentoring relationship between an accomplished practitioner of science, and an aspiring student, is firmly based in history. As an example, pharmacologists of today can still trace their lineage serially back through generations of mentor-student relationships, to the first mentor pharmacologist, Rudolf Buchheim (1820­1879; Starke, 1998). Despite this guise of antiquity, mentorship remains fundamental to the practice of modern science. As any active scientist can attest, few of the truly requisite skills, and certainly neither the intricacies of field/laboratory investigation, nor the subtleties of successful grantsmanship, can be successfully promulgated en masse. The words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, cited above, epitomize the focus on mentorship as an essential educational tool, particularly when applied to the training of future scientists. By providing career role models, intensive, personalized training in the attitudes and tools of science research, and by inculcating the ethos of accurate, rigorous scientific investigation in young students, mentorship does indeed "enable" the future of this discipline.

The educational power inherent in a mentoring association is most frequently limited by application to students nearing maturation in a given discipline (Randall, 1982). This reflects the demands on a mentor's time, energy and resource base, which are very real. While mentoring has been argued to be an "ethical imperative" for a professional scientist (Reif-Lehrer, 1992), in the real worlds of academic and corporate science, some concrete return on the investment must be realized if such activities are to continue. Little attention has been devoted to the systematic utilization of the mentor-student relationship as a bridge across the wider gulf between students just evincing an interest in science as an educational objective and the established, accomplished professional scientist. One attempt to address this issue has resulted in the formation of a mentorship-based cooperative program between the Jackson Public School District (JPSD) and the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC), called the Base Pair program. The purpose of the present paper is to summarize the history, structure and accomplishments of this mentorship-based science education initiative. In addition, it is hoped that this communication will stimulate further cooperation among individuals and institutions in the development of more numerous and comprehensive mentorship programs. The Journal of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences is an appropriate vehicle for this effort, since the Mississippi Academy of Sciences has become an integral resource in Base Pair activities.
 

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
 

The impetus behind formation of Base Pair was generated by a desire to share the human and technological resources of Mississippi's only medical school, as educational enhancements, with the largest public school district in the state. Three visionary leaders, Norman C. Nelson, M.D., Benjamin Canada, Ph.D., and Tim Medley, first developed an initiative to promote educational excellence through cooperation between the two entities. At the time, Dr. Nelson was Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Dean of the Medical School at UMC, Dr. Canada was Superintendent of the JPSD, and Mr. Medley was a member of the JPSD Board of Trustees. Several factors contributed to the conception of Base Pair. At the time, a growing perception of unmet educational and career planning needs was recognized among JPSD high school students, parents and administrators. In addition, difficulties with the implementation of an effective science curriculum were apparent. Despite residing within the capital city of, and being the largest district within, Mississippi, scores on nationally standardized tests, such as the ACT (Table 1) were below the national average. Such perceptions were mirrored by nationwide evaluations, including the performance of U.S. students in comparison with those of other industrialized nations. This apprehension was legitimized with the 1998 release of results from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which evaluated performance of fourth, eighth and twelfth grade students from 21 industrialized countries in 1995. Twelfth grade students in the U.S. ranked 17th out of 21 in general mathematics and science literacy (TIMSS, 1998). A direct result of the concern was the creation of a uniform set of National Science Education Standards, which was published in 1996 (National Research Council, 1996). Interestingly, the Base Pair program incorporates a number of the most significant recommendations of the National Science Education Standards project, including the increased use of mentorship of students and teachers by science professionals. Finally, UMC personnel were acutely aware that the pool of U.S. minority groups, qualified for entry into biomedical science training programs, was at dangerously low levels (Association of American Medical Colleges, 1996).

Base Pair was designed to select highly qualified JPSD high school junior and senior students and pair each student with a UMC mentor who maintained an active biomedical research laboratory. The appellation of Base Pair originated from the close personal pairing of student and mentor, and from the close physical pairing of the UMC and JPSD Murrah High School (from which most students were chosen) campuses. These associations were deemed highly reminiscent of the intimate and highly selective pairing between the nucleotides, adenine with thymine, and cytosine with guanine, which are the base pairs that determine the coding associations of the deoxyribonucleic acid double helix. An initial class of 5 students matriculated in 1993, spending a minimum of two 50-minute class periods in Base Pair activities, five days each week from January to May.

It was quickly realized that additional preparation was desirable before high school students could derive the maximum benefit from such an intensive introduction into the environment of medical center level biomedical research. Thus, when a second class of 11 students was selected prior to beginning the 1993­1994 academic year, plans were prepared to enroll students in a unique preparatory class that was initiated at Murrah High School during the Fall semester. This course was designed to provide students with access to key print and electronic information resources available at, and through, the UMC Rowland Medical Library, to ensure student awareness of ethical and behavioral aspects of conducting biomedical research, and to improve student familiarity with basic biomedical laboratory techniques, including safety issues, chromatography, and quantitative material handling skills. The course was submitted to the Mississippi State Department of Education as a developmental science course with the hope that the course could be considered for approval as a new member of those science courses accredited for high school graduation credit state-wide. The selection and training activities adopted for Base Pair relied heavily on the two decade example provided by a science mentoring program established in the New York City area by Roosevelt University personnel (Kaiser, 1998).

Application for external funding for Base Pair was made in 1993 in response to an invitation from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. This program has devoted over $29 million towards implementation of novel efforts at science education and curriculum reform since 1992. A five year award in support of Base Pair was granted with a start date of June 1, 1994.
 

PROGRAM STRUCTURE
 

The advent of Howard Hughes Medical Institute funding coincided with maturation of the curricular structure of Base Pair. The program currently consists of two primary components, the first oriented towards student-mentor interactions and a second whose purpose involves teacher-driven curriculum reformation. The student-oriented activities require commitment, by the student, of two 50-minute class periods, every weekday, for both the fall and spring school semesters. During the fall semester, students are enrolled in a course entitled, Biomedical Research. Enrollment in a science-associated Field Studies course follows during the spring semester. Biomedical Research is approved by the Department of Education, and carries with its completion 1 Carnegie Credit towards high school graduation. It is presently offered only at Murrah High School, where it is taught by a high school teacher in cooperation with UMC faculty. Because the course is Department of Education-approved, however, it can be offered in cooperation with virtually any university, or as will be detailed below, by access to electronic (World Wide Web) resources that are now available at a majority of Mississippi high schools. The core objectives of Biomedical Research are:
 

1. to offer exceptional high school students the opportunity to pursue collaborative research activities, nurtured by a mentoring relationship with an active researcher at the University of Mississippi Medical Center;
2. to establish a Summer Research Institute to train high school science and math teachers in the development of laboratory and computer-based teaching activities; and
3. to utilize Base Pair-trained students and teachers as stimuli to foster an intellectual environment within the target high school that will facilitate more diversified involvement in science-related activities.

It is important to recognize that while the ostensible purpose of Biomedical Research is to prepare students to engage productively in medical center-level biomedical research, there is an essential associated educational goal. Much of the effort of the course is to instill in each student the educational framework to become a self-motivated, "discriminating" learner. Thus, the intent is not to engage in rigorous didactic teaching, but rather to guide each student into a pattern of life-long, self-guided learning behaviors. Such an orientation, and the associated educational skills, are essential to a productive career in research.

Students are led towards this goal by the use of limited lectures, extensive assignments that require independent library/electronic research, and requirements for written and oral presentation of their findings to their classmates and teacher-facilitator. Occasional presentations by, or consultations with, UMC faculty extend their studies and set the groundwork for selection of mentor-student pairings that will occur during the second semester. The identification of these pairs is completed by the end of the fall semester and requires full approval of both members of each pair.

Academic credit for the spring semester activities, which are centered in UMC research laboratories of the mentors, is provided by enrollment in the Field Studies course which carries ½ Carnegie credit towards graduation. Attendance, by each student, in the mentors laboratory for the last two class periods of the day, every weekday, is mandatory. Arrangements can be made to extend the laboratory work beyond the regular school day.

A total of 56 students have participated in Base Pair since its inception in 1993. Of these, 32/56 (57%) have been female, 24/56 (43%) male. A more detailed breakdown by race and gender is presented in Figure 1. The greatest proportion of Base Pair students have been African-American women, followed by Caucasian men, Caucasian women, African-American men, Asian women and Asian men. Six of these students remain in high school. Of the remaining 50 students, only one is known not to have entered university or college (98% college progression). Twenty-three students have declared an area of science as their major field of study. However, not all students have yet declared a major field. Every effort is made to provide students with an engaging research experience. This includes travel to, and participation in the annual Mississippi Academy of Science scientific meeting that occurs each February. A total of 13 high school students have performed research significant enough to warrant their inclusion as a co-author on a formal scientific abstract. Fourteen abstracts have been presented at a Mississippi Academy meeting and published in the Journal of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences (Burke et al., 1997; Burke et al., 1998; Cohly et al., 1998a; Cohly et al., 1998b; Graham et al., 1996; Nick et al., 1998; Piletz et al., 1996; Priester et al., 1997; Siegel et al., 1994; Song et al., 1996; Summers te al., 1996; Taylor et al., 1996; Washington and Ray, 1998; Wilson et al., 1996). Four other projects have been published/presented in such forums as the meeting of the Southern Medical Society (Mani-Sundaram et al., 1995), the annual meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians (Anders et al., 1996), the European Tissue Repair Society meeting (Cohly et al., 1997), and the national Experimental Biology meeting (Yan et al., 1998). Two scientific papers, with Base Pair student co-authors, have been published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine (Summers et al, 1998), and Free Radical Biology and Medicine (Cohly et al., 1998).
 

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
 

Curriculum development and teacher training efforts occur during an intensive, 8-week summer internship program. As with students, selected teachers are paired with a mentor. The primary focus for each teacher is to prepare detailed lesson plans for laboratory-based science courses and activities. Teachers are prepared for extensive use of World Wide Web resources and biomedical information technology tools available through the Rowland Medical Library. Opportunities to prepare and test proposed laboratory activities are pursued. Participation in related workshops, tutorials, seminars, and grant-writing sessions is provided as deemed appropriate. It is expected that each teacher-trainee will create and submit a novel lesson plan upon completion of the 8 week session.

Five teachers have participated thus far and three complete lesson plans have been produced. The first of these was the plan for Biomedical Research, created in 1994 with the aid of teacher, Theophilus King. Novel course plans for the Department of Education-approved courses, Environmental Science, and Molecular Biology, were produced by Helen Farrish-Aseeri and Jennifer Lipscomb, respectively. Copies of these lesson plans can be obtained by contacting the author. All three courses are currently offered at Murrah High School. Eight abstracts have been submitted to and presented at Mississippi Academy of Science meetings by JPSD teachers and staff (Farrish-Aseeri and Rockhold, 1998; King and Rockhold, 1995; King and Rockhold, 1996; King et al., 1997a, 1997b; Lipscomb et al., 1998; Rockhold et al., 1994; Rockhold and Johnson, 1997).
 

PROGRAM INFLUENCE MEASURES
 

Admittedly, Base Pair directly supports a relatively small population of students and teachers. However, evidence is beginning to accrue which suggests that the program exerts a wider academic influence. Performance on the Biology section of the 1997­1998 State Department of Education Subject Area Testing Program revealed that the average total scaled score for Murrah High School students (303.5) exceeded averages for both district schools as a whole (292.6), and the state-wide average (300.0). The majority of efforts of, and the focus for, Base Pair activities at Murrah are biology and biomedicine. Murrah High School student participation in, and success at, science fair activities has significantly increased. A total of twenty-eight students from Murrah succeeded as 1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd place winners in the Region II science fair (1998) and progressed to the state-wide competition. Three of these were Base Pair students. Five of the Base Pair students received special awards in the regional competition. Eight of the Murrah students subsequently placed (1^st to 5^th places awarded) in the state-wide competition, including three students associated with the Base Pair program. Teacher performance has also been enhanced. Two of three grant proposals written by Base Pair-trained teachers in 1997­1998 were funded, a 66% success rate.
 

ASSOCIATED EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS
 

The mentorship orientation of Base Pair does not stand alone. Several other programs, which utilize mentorship associations and which are targeted at high school and early undergraduate students, have interacted significantly with the Base Pair initiative. These include the development of training activities for the Bailey Magnet High School for Health-Related Professions (JPSD), the Honors Applied Research Conference (HARC) at the Jackson Academy and Mississippi College, and a two-year mentorship program for freshmen and sophomore students at Tougaloo College. A list of other known student mentoring programs operating in the central Mississippi area are listed in Table 2.

This list is not comprehensive, but is intended to serve as the start of efforts to improve communication and coordination between similar educational programs. Persons involved in any program not listed here are encouraged to contact the author, with the hope of developing a more extensive list of such programs state-wide.
 

FUTURE GROWTH
 

The Base Pair program is funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute through June, 1999, and will continue with the full support of both UMC and the JPSD. Plans are being made, in conjunction with the School of Health-Related Professions at UMC, to establish an ongoing summer program for high school teacher training in curriculum development, laboratory skills training, and program support (grantsmanship). The Base Pair program currently maintains a Web page (http://www.shrp3.umsmed. edu or http://www.jackson.k12.ms.us) and efforts are underway to create an interactive Base Pair Web site linked to Rowland Medical Library information systems. The primary future goal for Base Pair is to use mentorship programs to enhance science education within Mississippi through the "3 C's": curriculum development, communication systems, and cooperation between institutions.
 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 

The author is indebted to Dr. Catherine Freis (Millsaps College) for scholarly assistance with derivation of the term, mentor. The Base Pair program and this manuscript are supported by an award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
 

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