Project SEARCH: Students teaching students

By Jim Barlow

Project SEARCH is UI students teaching younger students. It's hands-on.
It's independent study for UI undergraduates, and its popularity is growing
at a time when its funding sources appear to be drying up.

Since the project was hatched in 1992, 298 UI students have spread the
excitement of science to 3,000 youngsters at participating Champaign-Urbana
schools.

Project May Day's introduction of MRI research on the Internet represents
just another way for Project SEARCH to provide what the acronym stands for:
Science Education and Research for Children.

In Project May Day, SEARCH students will work with teachers and students,
helping them access the Internet and answer questions, in two classrooms
and at the Don Moyer Boys & Girls Club. To Project SEARCH Director Joan
Dawson, Project May Day allows for more hands-on work for her students.

"The students learn by doing and by teaching. They improve their
communication skills and their own self confidence," said Dawson, associate
director of the UI Biomedical Magnetic Resonance Imaging Laboratory and a
professor of molecular and integrative physiology. "In addition, these
SEARCH students are taking part in a challenge they are prepared to accept.

"Which is a better way to learn science - sitting in lectures or carrying
out hands-on science activities with children? Which is a better way to
learn communication skills - writing a paper that few will read and no one
will use, or devising a science lesson that SEARCH students, teachers and
children will use for many years to come? I can literally see these SEARCH
students mature from week to week and month to month as they face and
overcome unexpected challenges," Dawson said.

Project SEARCH students work with university faculty and school teachers to
develop teaching tools and techniques for use in two hourlong sessions with
children each week. They meet monthly with their peers and with faculty to
discuss their progress and talk about their classroom work. As their "final
exam," each student completes a lesson plan, poster, game, model, discovery
box, etc. that can be used to teach science.

"There is definitely a great need for science to be taught in elementary
schools," said Marina Marjanovic, coordinator of Project Search and a
visiting professor of molecular and integrative physiology. "Through
Project SEARCH, young students are not only exposed to hands-on science,
they are being turned on to science.

"On the other hand, our students face the tremendous challenge - some of
them for the first time - of using the science knowledge acquired in their
courses. I think that the general significance of Project SEARCH is that it
can serve as a model outreach program that could be easily applied in any
university setting," she said.

This spring, 48 undergraduates, including 13 freshmen and 24 seniors, from
14 academic disciplines are working with 450 youngsters and their teachers
in 19 classrooms. Many students repeat the course. In fact, Marjanovic
said, "Students usually stay in it for two or more semesters."

Students currently enrolled are from such disciplines as biology,
physiology, physics, education, English, chemistry, geology, microbiology,
psychology, biophysics and biochemistry.

Agreements for independent credit have been reached with a growing number
of departments for their students to gain credit in Project SEARCH.

Despite its popularity, Project SEARCH is approaching a financial
roadblock. It initially was funded as part of a National Science Foundation
Center that no longer exists. Efforts to secure other governmental or
foundation funding have not been successful.

"We currently are supported by a small grant from the university, but that
will soon end," Dawson said. "We may be able to find support for
network-based activities, but not for the hands-on science."

For information about Project SEARCH, contact Marjanovic at 333-7395 or by
e-mail (marinam@bmrl.med.uiuc.edu). On the Web, go to
http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/projects/projectsearch/search.html.t