Lab Mice

  KATHERINE OGLE Two students from James Monroe High School
conduct a lab experiment as part of Saturday’s CityLab program at
UCLA.

By Mary Hoang
Daily Bruin Contributor

The CityLab program at UCLA had its first annual installment of
science laboratory outreach Saturday in Young Hall.

UCLA students with science and lab backgrounds took the
opportunity to expose disadvantaged high school students in Los
Angeles County to lab research, something they may not have access
to in their high schools.

Seventeen students, enrolled in science classes at Monroe High
School, in the San Fernando Valley, took part in the program, which
is co-sponsored by the molecular, cell and developmental biology
department and the Undergraduate Research Center.

With 15 undergraduate science students assisting during the
four-hour session, the high schoolers learned about proper lab
etiquette, the scientific method, and how to diagnose someone who
may be afflicted by sickle-cell anemia.

The students had different viewpoints about their interest in
science and why they went.

“I came because I thought that it would be fun to come and
do something new and I also learned a lot of things that no one had
ever explained to me,” said Elsa, an 11th grader who is
taking a biology class.

But 10th grader Miguel came to the CityLab session for different
reasons; he said he would have been bored at his house.

All the students said they learned something new and that they
were glad they had come to UCLA for the CityLab program.

“In high school, I didn’t have laboratories in any
of my science classes. Work in the lab is a huge component of
learning because of the hands on experience,” said CityLab
Director Howard Fan, a fourth-year psychobiology student who has
been with the program for half a year.

“There is a huge need for improved science literacy in
California,” said, Diana Truong, president of CityLab and a
third-year psychobiology student.

“If you consider the groundbreaking work being done in
cloning, and gene therapy, we need a literate generation of
students to make informed decisions regarding the ethical questions
of these developments,” she added.

In addition, Truong said, the curriculum in high school science
courses is not up-to-date. She said CityLab seeks to promote
science literacy by teaching molecular biology concepts and making
students apply their new-found knowledge through science laboratory
experiences that are usually unavailable to most students in
LAUSD.

“This is truly an innovative and exciting program. The
CityLab undergraduates are extraordinarily committed to introducing
high school students to the excitement of science research,”
said Dr. Audrey Cramer, director of the Undergraduate Research
Center for the life and physical

sciences.

CityLab UCLA is not the first of such programs. Steve Yoo, a
graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, modeled CityLab
after a similar program at Boston University.

After graduating, he wanted to give back to his community by
creating CityLab at UCLA, where he was working at a Center for
Health Sciences laboratory.

Yoo along with Bryant Ng, a UCLA alumnus (’00),
established the infrastructure of the current program. Along with
the high school outreach component, the founders wanted to give
teaching experience to undergraduates.

“This is another way to help UCLA by linking the school to
the community,” Yoo said.

In late 1998, Yoo established CityLab UCLA with an initial pilot
grant of $2,000 from the Graduate School of Education and
Information Studies.

CityLab received lab space, equipment and facility support from
the molecular cell and developmental biology department. The
program received this support from Dr. Lutz Birnbaumer who is
currently chair of the department.

“We plan on figuring out a way to do the same thing with
high school biology curriculum,” Yoo said.

Nine more sessions are scheduled for the rest of the year, with
two sets of high school groups, of about 60 students each, planning
on attending each session.