Biomedical Partnership for Research Education Pipeline in Alaska (Alaska BioPREP)

描述(由申请者提供)：我们的目标是将分子生物学注入阿拉斯加小镇中学的教室。我们的长期目标包括招募学生从事生物医学和健康事业，以及提高阿拉斯加社区的生物医学素养。该项目是一个伙伴关系，由阿拉斯加大学费尔班克斯大学(UAF)的博士校园领导，包括学校和学区，从相对城市化的费尔班克斯(30,000人)到没有道路系统的小城镇和村庄。费尔班克斯医院是主要合作伙伴，我们还将包括乡村诊所。我们的社区模式融合了当地学校和医疗机构的人才和设施，作为中学生提出生物和生物医学问题的场所，使用分子方法回答这些问题，从而认识到现代西方科学对医学实践和日常生活中健康政策的重要性。我们的出发点是NSF资助的学徒项目的几年经验，这些项目将农村高中生与UAF的科学家联系起来。我们已经证明，分子遗传学对高中生来说是相关的、令人兴奋的和诱人的，如果它能应用于他们自己的生活的话。我们的顺序是从发现科学开始，逐步引入更多的分析技术，允许更多的问题，并经常让学生搜索活动与他们生活的相关性。在我们的NSF资助的模型中，领域是野生动物免疫系统的遗传学，这构成了乡村饮食的主要组成部分。我们使用当地的材料，例如驯鹿肉，学生们从这些材料中提取DNA，扩增遗传位点，测序，并评估结果。我们将增加项目主题，包括微生物学，并在暑假将学生和他们的老师带到大学校园进行密集的研讨会。我们的具体目标是：第一，扩大从个人学徒的方式，让更多的个人学生和整个班级参与分子生物学研究项目；第二，争取教师的合作伙伴关系，开发可以很容易地转移到其他学校或城镇的方法；第三，通过使家庭及其保健提供者感兴趣的校本生物学，向公众传播对分子生物学和西方简化论科学的欣赏。持久的影响应包括招募人员从事生物医学和卫生事业，并帮助社区认识到在制定公共卫生政策和实践时必须考虑的科学和伦理确定性和复杂性。 这个项目的直接目标将是让学生在高中毕业，因为他们的科学课程集中、具有挑战性和相关性。同时，我们将丰富教师的学习氛围，并通过家长和当地医疗机构与社区建立联系。目标是让更多的学生进入大学和卫生事业，更多地讨论当地社区卫生决策的科学基础，并更好地了解地方和州的卫生政策。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We aim to infuse molecular biology into the classrooms of small-town Alaska secondary schools. Our long-range goals include the recruitment of students to biomedical and health careers and an increase in biomedical literacy in Alaska communities. The project is a partnership, led by the doctoral campus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and including schools and school districts, from the comparatively urban Fairbanks (30,000) to small towns and villages off the road system. The Fairbanks hospital is a major partner and we will also include village clinics. Our community-based model blends the talents and facilities of local schools and health providers as venues where the secondary school students can pose biological and biomedical questions, answer them using molecular approaches, and thus gain an appreciation of the importance of modern western science to the practice of medicine and to health policy in their daily lives. Our point of departure is several years of experience with NSF-supported apprenticeships which link rural high school students to UAF scientists. We have shown that molecular genetics can be relevant, exciting, and seductive to high school students if it can be applied to their own lives. Our sequence is to start with discovery science, progressively introduce more analytical techniques and allow more questions, and frequently have the students search for relevance of the activities to their lives. In our NSF-funded model, the field is genetics of the immune system in the wild animals that form a major component of the village diet. We use local materials, for example caribou meat, from which students extract DNA, amplify genetic loci, sequence, and evaluate the results. We will add project themes to include microbiology and bring students and their teachers to the university campus for intensive workshops in the summers. Our specific aims are: first, to expand the approach from individual apprenticeships to engage more individual students and whole classes, in molecular biology research projects, second, to enlist the partnership of teachers in developing approaches that they can be readily transferred to other schools or towns, and third, by making the school-based biology of interest to families and their health providers, to spread appreciation of molecular biology and western reductionist science to the general public. The lasting impacts should include recruiting to biomedical and health careers and helping communities appreciate the scientific and ethical certainties and complexities that must be considered for formulation of public health policy and practice. The immediate aim of this project will be to keep students in high school through graduation because their science courses are focused, challenging and relevant. Simultaneously, we will enrich the learning atmosphere for the teachers and, through parents and local health providers, bridge to the community. The goal is more students in college and health careers, more discussion of the scientific underpinnings of health decisions in the local communities, and better informed local and state health policy.