Extracurricular Student Research and Development Teams

Uni High Curriculum Award Submission

April, 2009

From 1988 to 1996 I coached Uni High’s high school level Science Olympiad and JETS (now WYSE) teams. Though fun, there was not a great deal of substance to either competition, nor any real team or group work aspect to either. Students competed individually in events that were often based on ability to memorize or recognize large amounts of factual material. Uni students did well in both competitions with little preparation. Students received scores and placements relative to other competitors, but did not find out how they had done nor had opportunity to see errors and learn from them.

Other competitions like the Westinghouse (now Intel) Science Search were based on research produced while working in a scientist’s lab. Several Uni students did well in this, but creativity and teamwork were again lacking and student lab experiences were sometimes quite negative. Because of Uni’s long academic day and the heavy extracurricular load most Uni students carry, the majority of students rarely had the time to work in a lab, and the competition itself is limited to high school juniors and seniors.

In 1997 I began working with a group of four students interested in participating in the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision competition, a competition in which groups of two to four students collaborate to develop a collective vision of a future technology, research background regarding the technologies they plan to incorporate, discuss technological strides required for their technology to become a reality, assess the potential positive and negative societal impacts of the technology, and develop a set of storyboards for use in presenting their technology to other individuals.

My work with that team has led to my current extracurricular work with six to eight student research and development teams each year. I begin each year’s efforts by introducing new students to past projects and discuss how I work with individual teams in project development. Students select their own teammates and begin to select various technologies that interest them. I meet individually with each team for about an hour each week to discuss their recent findings, technologies that have attracted their attention, and how they imagine they can meld some of those technologies into a vision of the future. On weekends I host open labs for the teams to meet as groups, working either in a classroom or in the computer lab. My role is a combination of mentor, cheerleader, mediator, editor and technical consultant.

Though we began with a focus on one competition, teams have veered to focus on societal issues in eCYBERMISSION, or have gone on to present their vision in other competitions including Apple’s Web to the Edge technology competition. The results have been phenomenal. Uni teams have placed first twice and have placed second once in NSTA/Toshiba ExploraVision competition, the world’s largest international science competition. We are currently awaiting word regarding a top finish in this year’s competition. ExploraVision participants have earned $80,000 in scholarships and Toshiba has awarded the school the majority of its television sets, VCRs, some of its DVD players, and several of its laptop computers. Subfreshmen and freshmen have earned top national honors in the eCYBERMISSION competition, winning almost $20,000 in scholarships. A member of a team which did not advance into the final round of ExploraVision developed a web site dealing with their technology, submitted it to Apple Computer’s Web to the Edge competition, and placed first in the competition, earning a significant scholarship.

The research and development teams suit Uni in many ways. Unlike most other science-related programs, and aside from the occasional purchase of a computer software guide and mailing of entries, the cost of this program is minimal. Students can begin as subfreshmen and work on different teams over the next four years of their high school career. I’m not particularly focused on winning. The odds of any team advancing far in the competition is small since only one team from each multistate region advances into the later rounds. My goal is that each of the participants learn what it is like to work collaboratively in the development of the team’s collective vision and that each participant contribute significantly. On the way to developing this vision each student develops skills in researching areas of interest, presenting their findings, negotiation, collaboration in developing a shared vision, organization of findings, writing, editing, storyboarding and final presentation of a product. Students who advance far in the competitions learn additional skills in web page design and video production.

Interestingly, students who choose to take part in the research and development teams are often not the top students in the classroom. The reinforcement that they get through participation is particularly important and many of them develop newfound respect for themselves and their own capabilities.

As coach and facilitator I get as much out of this as the students do. I have opportunity to work with students on a more informal basis and I learn huge numbers of new things as the kids work with me in developing their collaborative vision.

Currently fifteen to twenty-five students are involved in this endeavor each year. Participation in the research and development team experience has significantly improved student summer science opportunities and the experience is a frequent focus of college admission essays and interviews for combined undergraduate/guaranteed medical school.

Unlike standard classroom situations where the same instructors assess student performance throughout the year, research and development teams profit from having their papers, storyboards, and prototypes assessed by professional scientists and technology leaders. It’s an excellent opportunity to nurture creativity.

An example of the efforts of one of this year’s teams can be accessed at http://www.isaacchambers.com/EV09/index.html. Thank you for considering this program in your deliberations.

Dave Stone, Biology Teacher, University Laboratory High School