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What is the program?
The Adopt a Scientist program is a pilot project in celebration of the World Year of Physics 2005. High school students will conduct email-interviews with scientists and report back on their findings to the class. Through these reports, the class will build a picture of the wide variety of opportunities available through science.
What is the purpose or goal of the program?
The purpose of the program is to expose high school students to what it means to be a scientist and the wide variety of careers and lifestyles that are available with a science education. Even in the best high school science classrooms it is difficult for students to gain an understanding of how science is pursued in academia and industry. This program seeks to help teachers in addressing that problem by setting up email-interviews between high school students and scientists.
Who is running this program?
This program was inspired by Jennifer Fischer, an intern with the American Physical Society (APS). The pilot program was developed and started by Mika McKinnon in the summer of 2005 while interning with the Society of Physics Students (SPS) through the American Institute of Physics (AIP). The program is being run by Kendra Rand, an intern with APS. The program is a joint project of SPS, AIP, APS, and the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) in celebration of the World Year of Physics
How is this a celebration of the World Year of Physics 2005?
The World Year of Physics 2005 is about raising awareness of physics in celebration of Einstein’s miraculous year. This program exposes high school students to what physicists (and other scientists) do and how they use science as part of their lives. It takes science out of the textbooks and classroom experiments and makes it about people and their lives. Students are encouraged to explore possible careers in science through interviewing enthusiastic scientists.
How can I support the program?
We have as many scientists as we can manage for the pilot program, but we could use assistance for next year in expanding beyond the pilot. We require financial support to hire full-time staff to manage the program and to develop the technical backend to automate the process of registering scientists and assigning them to classrooms. Please contact us if your institution is potentially interested in helping with the financial support.
What will happen after the pilot program is done?
In order for the program to expand beyond the pilot year, it must overcome the limitations of a summer intern managing a really big database. There needs to be funding to hire full-time staff to support the project throughout the year (recruiting in the spring and summer, running it in the fall, and analyzing the feedback in the winter) with sufficient technical support to automate the process of registering scientists and assigning them to classrooms. Currently, the financial support necessary to make this a reality is not available. Please contact us if your institution is potentially interested in helping to make the program expansion possible.
What is the timeline for the program?
July: Scientists are invited to volunteer for the program.
August: High schools are invited to participate.
September-December: Students conduct email-interviews with scientists.
2006: Feedback is collected, and the pilot program is analyzed for effectiveness.
How can I find out more about the program?
All the information on the program is available online at this website. If you have a question that is not answered here, please contact us.
I have a question that isn’t answered here. What do I do?
Email education@aip.org.
I’m a scientist. How can I get involved?
We are limited to 600 scientists for the pilot project. You may contact us to see if we’re still accepting scientists, or to sign up to be notified about the program when we start enrolling scientists next year. To register for the pilot program, scientists must submit the following information:
What is the role of the scientist in the program?
The scientists need to respond to email-interviews by high school students. The questions are drawn from a list. Scientists may go beyond the minimum requirements to have further interaction with students (allow questions off the list, engage in follow-up emails, etc)
What is the time commitment for the scientists?
This is a pilot program so the exact time commitment is uncertain. It is expected to take a couple of hours for the entire program. Questions are drawn from a list so that answers may be prepared in advance reducing the time commitment of an interview to a few minutes of copy/pasting the appropriate answer. The scientist determines the number of interviews as part of the registration process.
How many interviews is reasonable?
There are two approaches, and it is up to the personal preference of the scientist to determine which is most suitable.
Prepared Answers -- scientists may prepare answers to questions in advance. This places the bulk of the time commitment during the summer before school is in session and allows the scientist to spend time on the program when it is most convenient. With prepared answers, each interview can be a few minutes as the scientist copy/pastes the appropriate answers. Scientists using this approach frequently sign up for 10-15 interviews.
Personal Attention -- scientists may answer questions as they’re asked during an interview, and thus allow for follow-up questions or questions not on the list. This gives the students more personal attention from the scientist. Scientists using this approach frequently sign up for 1-3 interviews.
Who is a scientist?
If you think they might be a scientist, they probably are. We’re using a very broad definition of scientist – physicists, biologists, engineers, computer science people – everyone who uses their background in science as part of their life is a scientist. Scientists do not need to be active professionals but may be undergraduate or graduate students or retired scientists. Scientists can come from anywhere on the planet.
I’m an undergraduate or graduate student. Am I a scientist?
Yes. Undergraduate and graduate students are in a unique position to answer questions about what it means to pursue a science education after high school.
I’m retired. Am I a scientist?
Yes. As a retired scientist, you have the ability to enlighten students about what happens after a career in science, about how your career changed over time, and what you do now that you’re done with the professional phase of your life.
I’m a scientist outside the United States. Am I a scientist?
Yes. The United States does not have a monopoly on scientists, and international scientists are in a position to expose high school students to the way science crosses country borders in the pursuit of understanding.
How do I give you feedback on how the program went for scientists?
Please email us! You can use the prepared feedback questions or just give a testimonial on how the program went for you. As a pilot, feedback is essential in learning how to improve the program and to determine if it is worth repeating and expanding in the future.
What do you do with the personal information you collect from the scientists?
All the personal information is stored in an internal database. We provide teachers with the name and email address of the scientist as well as additional optional information (gender, ethnicity, undergrad/grad student, retired, dates unavailable for interviews). The information is not posted publicly and the email addresses will not be used to spam scientists. We will use the email addresses to contact scientists next year to solicit feedback on the pilot and to invite them to participate in future versions of the program.
Why are the categories so strange?
The categories were the biggest bug in the enrollment of scientists into the program. The purpose of the categories was to ensure that each classroom interviewed a variety of scientists. However the implementation confused the subject (what the scientist studies) with the location (where the scientist studies) and failed to allow accurate representation of the variety of fields the scientists study. This will be corrected in the program next year. Suggestions for alternate categories is welcome as part of the program feedback.
How do I register for this program?
Email education@aip.org with:
How many schools will be participating in this program?
We anticipate being able to provide 5 scientists to a classroom for 400 classrooms. The exact number of schools participating in the program will depend on how many scientists teachers request and if more than one classroom per a school will be participating. We will be enrolling teachers on a modified “first come, first served” basis in that we need to ensure geographic diversity so may hold spaces for underrepresented regions.
What are the teachers expected to do?
After you enroll, we will email you a list of scientists. The list will include the names of the scientists, their email addresses, and any special information (gender, ethnicity, undergraduate or graduate student, retired, dates unavailable for interviews) about the scientists. We will also send you the list of interview questions and a feedback form. Please break your class into small groups and assign each a scientist to interview. The students should select 3-5 questions from the list to ask the scientist. It is very important to use the questions from the list since scientists have prepared their answers in advance. After the interviews, the groups should report back to the class so that the class may build an understanding of the variety of opportunities available within science. Because this is a pilot program, feedback is essential to determine the effectiveness of the program and to improve it for future years. Please send us an email letting us know how the program went for you. You can either use the feedback questions we provide or you can give a testimonial of your experience.
Do you have any suggested lesson plans?
Background Research - many of the scientists have websites that can be found by doing a simple web-search. For university or business emails, you can use the domain of the email addresses as a starting point for research.
Defining a Scientist - have the class define what they think a scientist is and what they do before the interviews, and repeat the exercise after the interviews. How did their answers change?
Predictive Answers - after the students know what questions they’ll be asking but before they conduct the interview, have them predict how their scientist will answer. Compare the predictions with the actual responses.
Comparing Answers - have the class as a whole decide on 3-5 interview questions that they find most interesting, then ask all the scientists the same questions. Are any of the answers similar? How are they different?
My Answer/Your Answer - have the students select questions then answer them for themselves before asking the scientists. Do the students’ answers and the scientists’ answers have anything in common?
Can I select specific scientists for my class?
For the pilot program we do not have the resources necessary to allow teachers to make special requests regarding the scientists. Instead, we ensure that every group of five scientists has been selected for its diversity of careers and backgrounds. We have worked hard to mix the scientists by their field of study, by the stage of their career, and their gender and ethnic diversity. We do have a limited number of scientists who wish to engage in phone interviews or who can provide interviews in Spanish upon request.
How do I give you feedback on how the program went for teachers?
Feedback is essential to a pilot program, so please contact us with any feedback. You can use our questions or provide a testimonial of your experience.
What are the interview questions?
Students will be choosing 3-5 questions from this list to ask their adopted scientist. Scientists, please preface each interview with your name, your job title, and your institution.
For all scientists:
1. How would you describe your job? What do you do in a typical day?
2. What type of organization do you work for? Is this unusual for someone with your background? Why did you choose to work there?
3. Do you think that your educational background prepared you for your current occupation? What would you change?
4. When you were 18, what did you want to do when you grew up? How has that changed? Why?
5. What is your favourite aspect of your job? Least favourite?
6. What skills or personality traits are important for someone working in your field?
7. What is the most interesting or unusual project you’ve worked on?
8. What advice do you have for current high school students interested in science? What advice would you give to someone looking to enter your field?
9. What do you feel is the most significant or pressing problem in your field?
10. What are the logistics of your work? (pay, hours, vacation time, collaboration with other scientists and non-scientists, balancing work and family, time spent gathering or analyzing data…)
11. What personal challenges have you encountered in your pursuit of science? How did you overcome them?
12. Where do you find inspiration? How do you think of original ideas or choose the problems you work on?
13. How is your approach to science different than when you were in high school?
For women and minority scientists:
What is it like to be a woman or minority in your field? What are the biggest challenges? What resources are available? How have things changed during your career?
For undergraduate and graduate students:
Why did you choose your school? What resources did you find for paying for your education? How do you decide to go to graduate school? How is studying science at your level different than science in high school classes?
For retired scientists:
Did you work in the same field for your entire career, or did you change fields? What are you doing now that you have retired? What changes in society or science were most meaningful to you as a scientist? Why?
Why is there a pre-set list of questions?
By having a list of interview questions, it allows scientists to handle interviews from more than one school by recycling their answers. It does limit the ability of students to follow their particular curiosities but has the advantage of opening the program up to more students by allowing scientists to handle a larger number of interviews. Some scientists are willing to have students ask questions beyond those on the question list.
If the answers are all prepared in advance, why not just post them online?
Email provides more personal interaction and changes this from a research project to an interview. Although we have set a potentially impersonal minimum interaction, scientists and students are free to go beyond that to engage in a more personal experience.
Do the students get to select a scientist that interests them or are they matched up randomly?
For the pilot project we do not have the resources necessary to provide teachers with enough information about the scientists for students to be able to select a scientist based on common interest. Although we would like to have students select a scientist who interests them, for this year the students are matched up randomly.
Who is responsible for the views of the scientists?
The Scientists are responsible for their own views. The content and the opinions of the scientists have not been reviewed by AIP, APS, AAPT, or any other organizing body. Should a teacher be concerned about direct contact with scientists, it is recommended that the teacher filter all email communication through their own email address on behalf of the students.