Outreach Programs
Reaching out to tomorrow's science leaders!
For the past decade, staff, students, and faculty associated with the Microscope And
Graphic Imaging Center at California State University, Hayward, have been involved with
outreach programs serving students at K through 14 educational institutions.
Students from local elementary and middle schools, as well as high schools and
community colleges, have come to MAGIC for hands-on
demonstrations of the electron microscopes. When the students arrive, they are greeted by
the laboratory staff and student volunteers. The students helping to guide tours are
generally undergraduate or graduate students working on scientific projects in the
laboratory, although we have also enjoyed the assistance of art students who have applied
the aesthetics of artistic elements to electron microscopy.
The projects conducted in the laboratory are either on-going research studies
by faculty associated with the laboratory or graduate student studies under the direction
of faculty in the Departments of Biological Science, Geological Science, Physics, or
Chemistry.
The various approaches to outreach K through 14 students in which MAGIC has actively participated have included the Saturday College
Program, Young Women in Science, the Summer Bridge Program, and various community college
and elementary school outreach programs.
The Saturday College Program
The Saturday College Program reflects the efforts of Dr. Charles Harper of the
Physics Department at California State University, Hayward. This program invites
underrepresented middle school students within the Oakland School Districts to participate
in a day (a Saturday) at CSUH. Students are given options to participate in a number of
exercises, not necessarily in the sciences, to instill in the participants that the
college experience is something tangible and within reach. The students accepted to the
program must have a B average and have demonstrated a willingness to pursue academic
achievement.
Tara Hills Elementary School
Mr. Thomas Smith, 6th grade teacher at Tara Hills Elementary School,
San Pablo, California, brought gifted students from his 6th grade class to the EM
laboratory. It just so happens that Mr. Smith is married to MAGIC's
director, Nancy Smith. Both students and parents were enthralled with the results of the
samples prepared. The specimens provided by the students were simple in nature and
required very little in the way of sample preparation, yet revealed many of the mysteries
of scientific wondermont.
Young Women in Science
The SEM segment of the Young Women in Science Project incorporates an
experience in which students observe insects with the optical microscope with the
direction of Dr. Sue Opp of the CSUH Department of Biological Sciences. Those same insects
are then observed with the SEM with the assistance of CSUH Biology graduate student, Joey
Wolgast. The idea of this experience is to demonstrate the interrelationship of basic
morphology that students experience with the optical microscope with what they can observe
with higher power electron micrographs.
Community College Outreach
Ohlone Community College is located in Fremont, California, and
faculty members, Ron Quinta, Biology instructor, and Richard Eagan, Physics instructor,
have brought students through the electron microscope facility at CSUH over a number of
years.
The community college outreach has extended to Chabot Community
College with Dr. Dan Alex providing the liason between the Department of Biological
Sciences at CSUH and the Division of Mathematics and Science at Chabot Community College.
Dr. Alex's students have been coming to CSUH to participate in the methods of
microtechnique using paraffin-embedded tissues and to observe cells and tissues with the
TEM and SEM.
Summer Bridge Program
The Bridge Program at CSUH is an opportunity for students from
community colleges to participate in summer research projects in molecular and cell
biology. The program is funded by a grant awarded to CSUH by the National Institutes of
Health (NIH). Students from community colleges who plan on transferring to four-year
universities to major in sciences, and especially biology, are eligible to be accepted to
the program. The NIH recognizes that some ethnicities are underrespresented in professions
pertaining to basic biomedical research in disease mechanisms. African American, Hispanic
American, Native American and Pacific Islanders have been targeted to participate in this
program.
Students accepted to the program participate in two summer months of full-time
research. The program director is Dr. Donald Gailey of the Department of Biological
Sciences. The base community colleges participating in the Bridge program include College
of Alameda, Chabot College, Contra Costa Community College, Laney College, Merritt
College, and San Jose City College, although students of other Bay Area community colleges
are welcome to apply. Students of the summer Bridge 1996 performed experiments in
immunology, genetic cloning, DNA sequencing, and cell culture techniques.Cal State Hayward
faculty involved in these projects included Dr. Maria Nieto, Dr. Chris Baysdorfer, Dr. Ann
McPartland, Dr. Stephen Benson, Dr. Sue Opp, Dr. Gailey, Dr. Marvin Lamb and Nancy Smith.
In addition to scientific research projects, students have classes in molecular
genetics, career counseling, advice on the transfer process, peer mentoring and seminars
presented by local scientists.
