City dwellers get a taste of rural NH doing science

     From July 20 to July 28, 2008, the University of New Hampshire in collaboration with the (HCS – www.harlemchildrensociety.org)[1]hosted a week-long summer workshop (called Project REIS@UNH – Research Experience in Science @UNH) for a group of highly talented and enthusiastic high school students from inner-city New York/New Jersey area. Thirty-two students (62% young women, 38% men; 45% African American, 24% Hispanic and 31% Asian) from twenty-seven schools representing the HCS participated in the program. The students are a part of an intensive hands-on research program - “The HCS Science and Engineering Mentoring Program” comprising of over 300 students in the US (and additional 300 students around the globe), all under-resourced and under-served. They are carefully selected personal interviews by Dr. Sat Bhattacharya, CEO and President of HCS from a pool of over 1500 nominated from various schools, and mentored by 100’s of scientists, engineers and doctors in over 100 institutions, including University of New Hampshire (UNH). 

     The successful and careful planning by Dr. Subhash C. Minocha of UNH and Dr. Sat Bhattacharya and their staff made it possible for the participating students to spend 8 days at UNH, living in the dormitory and experiencing the sweetness (and trauma) of rural living, while focusing on science. This was deemed as a ‘pilot program’ aimed at providing (in the future) a unique experience in integrated living for a diverse group of high school students coming from inner city urban areas of New York/New Jersey and the rural areas of New England through the regularly offered Project SMART (Science and Mathematics Achievement through Research Training)[2] Summer Institute at UNH (www.smart.unh.edu) Summer Institute at UNH. Dr. Subhash Minocha, Professor of Plant Biology and Genetics, has Directed Project SMART Summer Institutes at UNH for the past 17 years.

     The students arrived (presumably with apprehensions) by bus from New York on Sunday, July 20^th and left on July 28^th with sweet memories of UNH, its faculty, and the state of NH. The week-long program focused on biotechnology of plants, with its myriad of applications and implications to our food chain, nutrition and medicine, to the environment and the climate, and to biofuels and energy. The program included lectures and discussions of current advances in biotechnology and its implications (social, economic, legal, ethical, moral, and regulatory) to our society; in the laboratory, they learned the tools of plant cloning and genetic engineering. The students were also introduced to other components of Project SMART; i.e. Nanotechnology, Space Science and Marine and Environmental Science by faculty experts in those fields. The students got an exposure to the local community and the beauty of NH through walks on UNH campus (visiting the horse barns and the college woods), a cruise to the ocean (watching whales and doing marine science), and a ride to the top of Mt. Washington by the world’s oldest Cog Railway. They interacted with several UNH administration officials to get to know the university and the community. For one morning, they were connected via live telecast to their colleagues back in New York. Overall, the students had a challenging and a stimulating academic learning experience, certainly accompanied by long-lived memories of fun, excitement and development of new friendships among themselves and with the staff at UNH. The HCS students were joined during the day time by two local high school students from the Oyster River High School and a visiting high school student from South Carolina.

     The feelings of the students are reflected in some of their departing comments like:

     “It perfected my summer”, “The experience was awesome”, “Exceeded my expectations”, “Gave me a taste of college”; “Longer program” was the demand of many.

     As a follow-up to the program, each student is expected to explore in-depth a topic of her/his choice about which she/he will write an assay and prepare a PowerPoint presentation by the end of August. These essays will be collated on the web for everyone to learn from them.

     The program was supported by the Harlem Children Society and several sources at UNH, including the NH EPSCoR Program Grant from the National Science Foundation, NSF grants to individual faculty, the NH Space Grant Consortium, Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing, Office of the Provost, the Vice Provost for Diversity, Office of Admissions, College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, College of Engineering and  Physical Sciences, Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, and the McNair Graduate Opportunity Program. The laboratory supplies were donated by the Bio-Rad Laboratories, Hercules, CA. Hayden Sports of Durham, NH donated UNH T-shirts to all participants. Several UNH faculty and staff participated in the program in many different ways.

The names of schools which were represented can be found at: www.smart.unh.edu. For more information about HCS see: www.harlemchildrensociety.org.