Bard College Citizen Science

Just came back from another Citizen Science program at Bard College. This is my second year teaching this course, and as like last year, you cannot predict what is going to happen when you try teaching Science to Liberal Arts college students. These students are mostly first year undergraduates, with a couple of hitchhikers from second year. And most, if not all of these students HAVE NO interest in Science, let alone spend two weeks in the middle of cold winter talking about Science. 

This year's topic, taking inspiration from the incident at Flint, is about contamination in the water. There are a couple of classes where we have to teach basic chemical structures and statistics, proved to be a bit more challenging in keeping the interest of the students. In most cases, I kept the classes pretty simple and fun, since the goals of the course was to increase the science literacy of the students. They were not expected to learn any chemical compounds, biological concepts etc, just knowing how to find the evidence behind the pop-science articles, and relay them to their friends and families in a non-scientific manner. If they can do this, my job is DONE!

I am blessed with a good class this year - no one was particularly hard to handle, everyone handed in their homework on time, and no one was absent for no good reasons. At the end of the course, two other faculty members and I combined our students' presentations, and made it an event. There was posters, videos, games and even cakes and cookies.

Although it was winter and most days we were running from one class to another or preparing materials for the next class ... I remembered to take a moment once in a while to enjoy the views.

Bard College Teaching

This post is so delayed, and I am very sorry about it! Work and life have really caught up with me, and I have been so busy trying to keep everything together.

In January, I spend two weeks in Bard College, teaching a group of liberal arts students the microbiome in the Citizen Science program. There was a snow storm the day I flew out to NY - I was flying to Albany, and be picked up by the bus driver (together with other faculty members). It snowed so much that I was worried we were going to be stranded in the airport. Luckily, after spending two hours waiting, our driver finally arrived, and we were on the way to the college campus.

The room that I was going to spend the next two weeks was very "spartan" like - a single bed, a single chair and a table. Some of the other faculty members brought along rugs, blankets and lamps to make it more homely - I just treated it as a time for me to rough it out :)

We had additional last minute training for a couple of days, and we were going to meet our students on Sunday evening. There was a opening ceremony, and then we get to talk to our students. Each faculty members were supposed to have 18 students, but due to a few faculty members having last minute cancellations, I had 21 students.

I spend Sunday morning doing some last minute preparation - all the faculty members were excited and nervous at the same time. The students were not biology majors, so this program had been known as "Science Jail" in the past, and our goal was to make them not only understand but also enjoy science!

I arranged my class tables so that I can see all the students. I am excited to meet my students this evening, and ready to take them on a wild trip through the microbiome!

My syllabus for this course was the human gut microbiome, how they are affected by antibiotics, and antibiotic resistance bacteria, and finally ended with a global view on antibiotic resistance bacteria and how it is going to affect us! I used a mixture of videos, scientific readings and group discussions to go through the syllabus. My main goal was not to teach them everything about the microbiome, but for them to appreciate science, and the secondary goal was to empower them the knowledge to be able to find the real facts behind the scientific propaganda and present it to the class (normal people) in simple terms.

Apart from teaching theories, we also had three days of laboratory sessions. The labs were simple, including gram staining, plaque assay and Kirby Bauer assay. I didn't really teach the labs, but instead I taught the Teaching Fellow (who is a senior in Bard College) how to teach the labs. So, in turn, I took a more supervisory role, and the Teaching Fellow became the teacher.

The two weeks when we were there, I couldn't help but be amazed by the beauty of the location. It was almost as if we were in Winter Wonderland.

The student had a final project. The faculty members had the freedom to choose whatever final project they wanted the students to undertake - most of the faculty members asked for a written assignment and a presentation about microbiome. I was pretty bored with microbiome by then, and so I asked the students to be creative and do anything they liked (with bonus points for creativity) about the microbiome.

My class final project included a song, three videos, cooking, a comic drawing, a game, two books, haiku, a computer simulation program and an art installation. Of course, there were also presentations, and for these creative items, they had to prepare a short 5 minutes presentation as well. I was blown away by the creativity of these students... no wonder most of them are art majors :) 

Bard College Faculty Training

I was accepted as a faculty at the Citizen Science Program at Bard College (No, it is NOT a permanent position - I am still a postdoc at University of Chicago). I am supposed to introduce first year undergraduates (both biology and non-biology majors) to the wonders of science. I will be teaching these students in January 2018 for three weeks. This week, together with all the other faculty members (from different institutes, ranging from Associate Professors to PhD students), I was at Bard College for a week's training. We were briefed about the course, what to pay attention to, how to structure the syllabus etc...

Bard College is a liberal arts college and has a long history of education. It is located just south of the Hudson River. The campus is very pretty, and all the faculty members made sure that we enjoyed the scenery because in January, it will be covered in snow! So.. here.. enjoy :)