STONEHILL SCIENCE SATURDAY
Providing Advanced Placement Labs for High School Students

On a rainy Saturday morning in March, Miriam Baradgi, a sophomore at Brockton High School, is fitting the delicate stem of a leafy green bean plant into a slim tube of water in the biology laboratory at the College's Merkert-Tracy Science Center.

Lab Instructor Steve Dacey, himself a Stonehill graduate, is explaining the details of the experiment to Baradgi and 17 other high school students, who are about to learn how wind, humidity and heat affect a plant's ability to absorb water.

Baradgi just turned 16 and hopes to study neuropsychology. She appreciates the opportunity to spend her Saturday mornings in a college laboratory.

Feeling Like Scientists
"We do similar labs in high school, but you get a better feel of it here," explained Baradgi. "You're feeling the lab experience and you're loving it. You don't feel like a student, you feel like a scientist."

Since September, 47 students from Brockton High School, Randolph High School and Coyle and Cassidy High School in Taunton have been traveling to Stonehill on Saturdays to complete labs for their high school courses in Advanced Placement biology and chemistry. 

NSF Grant Funds Program
The College has provided facilities, equipment, instructors and round-trip bus transportation for the students as part of a five-year, $813,486 grant from the National Science Foundation aimed at increasing the number of students earning degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Collaborating with Local High Schools
Professor Craig A. Almeida, director of the Biochemistry Program at Stonehill, said the collaboration between the College and local high schools is mutually beneficial.

"It's great for us as a college to be able to reach out to the local communities and help them in areas where they're struggling," Almeida said. "It can be difficult for high schools, because of limited facilities, equipment and budget constraints, to offer these AP courses."

At Brockton High School, eight students in AP Chemistry take the class online through a "virtual high school." Their labs, a major component of the Advanced Placement exam, are simulated, and the students observe them on a computer screen, said Richard Poirier, chairman of the Science Department.

"It's not as good as the hands-on experience they're getting" at Stonehill, said Poirier. "That's why I'm thrilled to have the kids involved."

Two students from Brockton, Steven Sprague, 16, and Kelsey Quimby, 17, both juniors who want to study forensics, worked on an acid-base titration experiment. They put hydrochloric acid in a beaker, added distilled water and a base, and collected data with a pH sensor and a graphing calculator. Later they used the information to create an Excel spreadsheet on a computer.

"This is a lot more hands-on and has a more physical concept to it" than watching the experiment on a CD, said Sprague.

For Randolph High School juniors An Le and Michelle Leung, both 17, the chemistry lab at Stonehill marked their first encounter with a pH sensor and a graphing calculator.

"We've never seen this kind of stuff before," said Le. 

At Randolph High, "we can't do as many labs, and we don't have as much equipment," explained Leung.

AP Students Come Prepared
Chris Levasseur, the chemistry lab instructor, graduated from Stonehill in 2003 and now teaches at Holliston High School. He called the AP high school students "very independent, with a strong background in science."

"We're teaching 12 labs specific to the AP exam," Levasseur explained. "They're recommended labs, using technology the students would not have access to." 

Kathleen St. Laurent, chairman of the Science Department at Coyle and Cassidy High School, said the biology lab complements her high school program. The biology lab instructor, Dacey, works closely with teachers at Coyle-Cassidy and Brockton High to learn where students are in the curriculum and to prepare the labs for them ahead of time, she said.

"Steve is an amazing instructor," said St. Laurent. "He makes it look easy. He has a way of capturing their attention. On a Saturday morning, to have these high school kids here and so into it, it's really amazing."

Dacey, who graduated from Stonehill in 1999 and teaches at Xaverian Brothers High School, called his students "awesome."

"I'm very impressed that, even that first week, they're really wired, even at 8:30 a.m. Then you can't help but be wired yourself," Dacey said. "As soon as the experiment starts, everyone comes alive and moves around the room sharing things. It runs itself once you get them going."

Worth Getting Out of Bed Early on Saturdays
Ross Piesco, 17, of Raynham, a Coyle-Cassidy junior, said it's worth getting out of bed early on a weekend morning to attend the labs. In high school, class periods are shorter, and there isn't enough time to do the work fully, he said.

"This lets us do all the labs," said Piesco. "To try to fit the entire book into one year is ridiculous. It's like a college course and it gets overwhelming in one year."

Piesco said he would like to study psychology one day. "I just really like science a lot," he said.

Almeida said the College hopes that the detailed lab experience will give students the opportunity to ask themselves, "Do I really like science, and is this a career I might think about exploring further?"

Stonehill's Commitment
Stonehill is committed to offering the program for at least the next two years, Almeida said. The labs should help the students do well on the AP exams, making them "more confident and able to perform better," he said.

For all the students, attending labs at a college is "a feather in their cap when they go to apply to college," said Brockton High's Poirier. "We're very grateful to have this link to Stonehill."

Additional Science Outreach
Other grant funds are being used to finance summer research experiences for Stonehill and Massasoit Community College students early in their college careers. 

These funds support peer mentoring and summer programs for Stonehill first-year students, provide science tutoring, advising and clearer guidelines to Massasoit students interested in transferring to four year colleges to major in the sciences, and provide new theme-based General Chemistry courses at both institutions.

In fall 2009, Stonehill will open a new $34 million, 89,000-square-foot Science Center that will replace the current Merkert-Tracy science facility.

To view the Stonehill Science Saturdays Snapshot, visit here.

Issued 03/11/08