David Wong’s eighth-grade science students at Ewa Makai Middle School hatched ducklings last semester, researching factors such as temperature and oxygen to master incubation techniques in his project-based class.
The venture was possible because an egg incubator and other laboratory equipment was donated to the school in a new program by the University of Hawaii’s John A. Burns School of Medicine.
“There’s wonder, a little shock, excitement, an appreciation for life, the sadness for the death,” Wong said of the incubation project. “It’s an engagement in the science inquiry process. It makes learning and teaching much more meaningful and purposeful.”
To promote hands-on education, the Center for Cardiovascular Research at the medical school is giving used laboratory equipment it no longer needs to high school and middle school science classrooms statewide.
“They can’t get hands-on if they can’t even get their hands on equipment,” said Rachel Boulay, project coordinator and an assistant professor at the center. “The idea was, if we really want students to be doing more of these molecular biology labs, we have to help them get the materials to be able to do that.”
Supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health, the UH program has provided microscopes, glassware, lab benches and other equipment to more than 15 schools on Oahu, Maui, Kauai and Hawaii island since last summer.
Medical school staff collect used equipment from local hospitals and university facilities, repair them if necessary and package them for distribution.
The project was developed by Boulay, who has been holding annual professional development classes for public high school science teachers since 2010. She said she started the classes after noticing a lack of basic lab knowledge by student researchers hired to work for the medical school.
“(There are) some pretty simple things we’re repetitively having to teach over and over again. So we could put together a training program, but it was a lot more efficient to actually go back to the high schools and make that connection,” Boulay said.
The program for high school science teachers features lectures from researchers from across the globe, time in the center’s lab to learn about new technology and a chance to network with fellow science teachers and science innovators.
Wong, who has taught on Oahu for 22 years, participated in the initial spring program in 2010, when he was a science teacher at Farrington High School. He said he “jumped at the chance” to attend.
“Often as teachers, we only get in-service (training) from other educators. We need more than that. We need people who are actually there doing the real work,” Wong said.
It was during the professional development sessions that Boulay realized UH needed to provide teachers with the same equipment in their classrooms that they were using during the training sessions.
“When we worked with these teachers, I was then interested in how they could use what we’re teaching them in their classrooms. What I learned was, they didn’t have access to sometimes even the basic supplies or equipment,” she said.
Boulay said she conducted a statewide assessment to see what equipment was available in high schools and worked “with the facilities departments in the university and colleagues to come up with equipment or supplies that became available: something older that we wouldn’t be using here, but would fill those needs of the students.”
Wong said he claimed a centrifuge, pH meter, spectrometer, desiccating chamber and glassware, along with the incubator. He estimates that the equipment would cost about $4,000 if new, and estimated it is worth about $1,000 in its current condition.
Boulay said she would like to expand the training program to middle school teachers to help younger students.
“A lot of research shows us that the younger you expose students to science, and the excitement and inquiry, that’s where you really get the interest long term,” she said.
