UM students share love of science with children

MILFORD – Glitches are all in a day’s work for a scientist, fifth- graders at the Lewis Libby School discovered last week after a batch of sluggish termites failed to perform as expected.

Melissa Borden, a University of Maine doctoral student who was teaching the children, had hoped that the termites would follow along the black figure eight that had been drawn on a small piece of paper inside a petri dish. The theory was that something in the ink would attract the bugs.

Instead, the tiny creatures insisted on either wandering from their course, burrowing underneath the paper or simply staying put.

Unfazed, Borden knew a teachable moment when she saw one. “When you’re dealing with science a lot of times things don’t work out as you want. You need to have patience to follow through. I once spent six months doing an experiment over and over. Finally it worked and I was overwhelmed with joy. I jumped up and down!” she told the students.

Borden, a plant science major, was able to temporarily take over teacher Rhonda Shirland’s science class thanks to the National Science Foundation, which about two years ago gave UM a $1.3 million grant to expand science education in K-12 at schools in Orono, Old Town, Veazie, Indian Island and Union 90, consisting of Milford, Bradley, Greenbush and Alton.

The mission of the three-year program, in which 10 graduate students and two seniors teach a science class once a week or so, is to enrich science education; provide professional development to teachers; promote graduate students’ communication skills and their interest in K-12 education; develop cooperation between the university and area school teachers; and help schools meet the standards in Maine’s Learning Results.

It is also hoped that the UM students, who are focusing on such diverse subjects as food science, wildlife ecology, geology and oceanography, will make more schoolchildren consider college and open their eyes to possible careers in math, science and engineering.

While Borden plans to become a family practice physician, she said she hopes to continue “going into classrooms to do outreach.”

“I love explaining science and [offering] hands-on activities so students can do and see and understand better. I want kids to think science is fun and to just appreciate how nature works,” she said Thursday morning as she deftly extracted termites from the block of wood in which they had been shipped.

It would take more than a bunch of recalcitrant termites to dampen the excitement of the children who were enthralled with Borden’s lesson about making hypotheses and then conducting experiments to test them.

The idea was to understand why termites are drawn to the markings made by a pen, Borden said. Could it be the scent? The color? The texture?

In fact, she said privately, the ink contains a scent that is similar to that of the pheromones secreted by termites as they communicate with one another.

As the children gathered in groups to cheer the termites on, they hazarded guesses as to why the insects couldn’t seem to get their act together.

“I think ours is too lazy,” said Colby Doucette.

“He wants to hide from us – we’re too big,” said Corey Georgia.

Kayla Curtis watched one insect make a series of U-turns. “This is a termite with a mind of its own!” she said.

The fragile termites apparently didn’t weather the trip from Massachusetts well, Borden told the pupils. Next week she’d bring ones that were more vigorous, she promised.

Happily watching the goings-on in her classroom, Shirland said the NSF program has been a boon. The UM students are wonderful role models and they bring in materials and resources from the university that allow her fifth-graders to use sophisticated, top-of-the-line equipment, such as dissecting microscopes.

Better yet, Shirland said she has been privy to “an expert in the field who has information and wonderful ideas that I wouldn’t have had – I’m not a specialist!”

Teachers who participate in the program attend a week of science camp at UM, where “we get a chance to meet the fellows and to plan units,” she said. “So it’s really teamwork.”

The program represents a “sea change in the attitudes of professional scientists about their responsibility for broadening public education,” said Susan Brawley, professor of plant biology and director of the NSF project.

“There’s been a very long tradition of scientists not being involved in K-12,” she said. “There was simply no contact. People hadn’t been thinking about anything but college freshmen.”

But now, young scientists are coming away with “a deep sense that it’s their responsibility to transfer scientific knowledge to the public and especially K-12,” she said.