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Of man and microbe
SED biologist urges Earth-friendly approach to education

By Hope Green

One of Douglas Zook's favorite photographs is a satellite image of Scotland and the Sea of the Hebrides. From space, billions of single-celled floating plants appear as a blue haze in the water. These Emiliania plankton play an essential role in oxygenating Earth's atmosphere, and when they die, their shells fall to the ocean floor and harden into limestone.

	Douglas Zook has been appointed to a three-year term as president of the International Symbiosis Society. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

For Zook, the photograph is an exquisite example of an Earth system, a phenomenon he has been studying and teaching about for 25 years. It hangs in a third-floor wing of the School of Education and is part of a miniature science museum filled with nature drawings, posters, shoebox dioramas, and a pond water aquarium nestled among live plants.

This interactive learning center is the centerpiece of the Microcosmos Project, a curriculum and teacher-workshop program that Zook, an associate professor, directs while coordinating the master's program for aspiring science teachers at SED. The curriculum emphasizes the study of microscopic life forms through innovative art projects and simple experiments.

Microbes, Zook says, have an undeservedly bad reputation.

"There are one and a half pounds of microorganisms in our bodies," he points out. "They're really everywhere. Yet 99.9 percent of them are known not to be involved with disease. They're involved with providing gases and the elements we need to survive. So we have a very skewed view of the microworld."

But it is the big picture Zook ultimately wants children to see. "I want teachers to be able to go out into the schools," he says, "and convey in their classrooms the many ways we are connected to the Earth."

A concern with ecosystems also drives the work of the International Symbiosis Society, where Zook was recently appointed to a three-year term as president. The organization supports professional research into symbiotic partnerships between organisms, such as the fungi and algae that make up lichens, or the aphids and ants that live in cooperative colonies.

Presidential duties for the society include raising funds, increasing membership, overseeing a newsletter and Web site, and coordinating an international conference, slated for July 2001. "I see this position as an effective vehicle for me to reach out further to the scientific community," says Zook, a botanist. "It will also keep me focused on research, which is the backbone of my teaching."

His current fascination: the freshwater alga Ophrydium versatile. Multitudes of this species cluster together, encased in a gel-filled sphere, and allow a select group of organisms into the sac to barter nutrients with them.

"To me, that's the ultimate symbiosis, because it's like a mini-Earth floating in a pond," Zook says. "If I could bring that into a classroom, it would be a great vehicle for learning."

Zook (COM'75, MET'78) is widely recognized for his educational methods as well as his scientific pursuits. In 1995 he served on a National Academy of Sciences committee to design U.S. science teaching standards, and recently he was interviewed for an upcoming special on microbes for the Discovery Channel.

His work in science pedagogy began in 1975 at the Franklin Park Zoo, where he was the education program manager and designed in-depth curricula for the Boston public schools. Until that time, Zook found fulfillment mainly in his volunteer work. He was a community activist, and among other projects, he served on a committee that advocated affordable housing in the South End.

But at the zoo, his career began taking shape. There, he says, he began to realize "that there was a real need for science to be translated for the public."

Having completed one bachelor's degree at COM, he pursued a second at Metropolitan College, majoring in biology. One of his most influential professors was biologist Lynn Margulis. "She opened my eyes to the symbiosis world," Zook says.

Several years later, he won a Fulbright fellowship for doctoral and postdoctoral work in Germany, and earned a Ph.D. in biology from Clark University. In 1987, he joined the faculty at BU, and Margulis, who now teaches at UMass-Amherst, helped him launch the Microcosmos Project. More than 8,500 teachers in several countries have taken workshops through the program, which is a major component of Zook's methods courses. He hopes the teachers will gain a better understanding of Earth's collaborative systems and pass it along to the next generation.

"I think we need to find our symbiosis with the planet, whereas we're sometimes looking to manage it," he says. "We're only a blip at the end of the evolutionary time scale, whereas the Earth has been around successfully without us for a long time. So the question is, how can we fit into, and be of service to, the planet, and further its health? That in itself is a symbiosis question."

3 October 2000
Boston University
Office of University Relations