Bringing Research to the Community
Addressing Inequalities by Making Boston University Mobile
Like Boston University’s dental outreach program, CityLab—an educational outreach program created by Carl Franzblau—brings the University’s resources and knowledge directly to the community. Chairman and professor of biochemistry, as well as associate dean for graduate medical sciences at the School of Medicine, Franzblau started CityLab in 1991 with a grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Research Resources. The first students participated in the program in 1992. Today, CityLab is still funded by NIH’s Science Education Partnership Award program and is its longest ongoing grant for projects focused on K-12 biomedical science education and outreach.
Inside MobileLab, a biotechnology lab in a converted bus, children discover that science can be fun.
Franzblau was struck by the dearth of American students choosing the biomedical sciences as a profession and looked to science training in K-12 as the first step toward addressing this academic imbalance at the college and university level. From a series of Saturday morning meetings during which he and his colleagues debated the best ways to deliver material to students, CityLab was born. They decided to open a laboratory at BUSM where teachers could bring middle and high school students to learn about the biotechnology industry, and it wasn’t long before the lab’s success led to the creation of many other programs. A second laboratory was added, and these two labs are now filled with resources available to teachers and students in the Boston area.
When the waiting lists grew long, Franzblau created MobileLab, a Blue Bird bus that has been converted into a biotechnology lab to bring state-of-the-art science laboratory resources to a greater number of students since it goes directly to their schools. Donald DeRosa, a research assistant professor at the School of Medicine and clinical assistant professor in the School of Education, is the director of the School of Medicine’s CityLab and MobileLab. He considers the MobileLab to be “by far the most innovative combination of the scientist-educator partnership for educational outreach that CityLab has created.” DeRosa notes that MobileLab works closely with MassBioEd, the educational foundation of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, to provide high schools with professional equipment and resources to promote biotechnology education. Another benefit of MobileLab, he says, is that it “provides an equal opportunity for students in all schools to experience effective hands-on investigations in molecular biology regardless of socioeconomic factors.”
MobileLab, shown in front of the Massachusetts State House, and its partner program CityLab reach approximately 7,000 students each year.
In addition to providing resources to enable students and teachers to experience authentic laboratory science, CityLab and MobileLab offer a dose of educational fun for students and educators. Both CityLab and MobileLab, Franzblau says, are designed to show students that science can be interesting and exciting—a message that strikes a chord with children of all ages. “With enough resources,” he adds, “we could reach down into kindergarten.”
In the meantime, Franzblau and DeRosa capture the imaginations of older elementary school children by turning science lessons into mysteries. One recent lesson engaged students in trying to track down missing stuffed animals—and the identity of the person who nabbed them. Second and fourth graders performed blood cell typing and solubility testing and discovered that it was a teacher who had swiped the stuffed lions.
The CityLab team has broadened its programming beyond the hallmark daily visits to CityLab and MobileLab. Franzblau created a summer biotechnology program in 1996 to provide an in-depth exposure to biotechnology for high school students. He, along with Carla Romney, assistant dean of graduate medical sciences at the School of Medicine and chair of the Science and Engineering Program at Metropolitan College, and Donald DeRosa, expanded this program to include students with disabilities with funding from the National Science Foundation. The summer program always fills to capacity, so they are looking to offer additional summer sessions.
CityLab Academy was created in 1996 as a free nine-month training program in biotechnology and biomedical science for high school graduates. Students take science and lab skills courses and receive credits from BU’s Metropolitan College. Connie Phillips, research assistant professor at the School of Medicine and Metropolitan College, is the director of both CityLab Academy and the Biomedical Laboratory and Clinical Science Program at the School of Medicine and Metropolitan College.
CityLab serves 7,000 students per year and its materials have been used by approximately 600,000 students and their teachers at BU and other sites throughout the United States and in Europe since its inception. Programs that replicate CityLab’s innovative and effective science education outreach methods now exist throughout the country and several domestic and international groups are establishing similar programs with support from the CityLab team. Teachers who visited CityLab or used MobileLab were extremely satisfied with the labs’ effective teaching of fundamental concepts and the promotion of a positive attitude about science, according to surveys completed in the spring of 2006.
Even now, Franzblau is always looking for new ways to expand K-12 outreach in science and medicine. He envisions a Science Corps in the United States, similar to the Peace Corps, which will eventually recruit young teachers and educators to bring labs to “the hills of South Dakota and the inner city of Chicago.”
Like Edward and Judith Bernstein and Michelle Henshaw, Franzblau, DeRosa, Romney, and Phillips view their outreach projects as a fundamental part of their academic activities. They know that their programs bring Boston University’s intellectual resources into the community, and recognize the importance of the biomedical sciences to the health, welfare, and economies of the state and nation.
For more information about CityLab, MobileLab, and CityLab Academy, see www.bumc.bu.edu/citylab.
