Medical researcher mentors high school teacher

For eight weeks last summer Theodore Johnson of Feinstein High worked with Brown's Sharon Rounds. The partnership, offered through Frontiers in Physiology, helps teachers delve into lab science.

by Scott J. Turner

As a high school science teacher, Theodore Johnson (left) knows all about the use of show-and-tell to help students learn about biology, chemistry and physics. In late April his work in the lab of Brown’s Sharon Rounds, M.D., will appear in the professional version of show-and-tell when Rounds presents a research poster during Experimental Biology 2002, a scientific meeting in New Orleans. Johnson is one of the poster’s co-authors.

For eight weeks last summer Johnson worked in the Rounds lab in the Providence VA Medical Center. He studied a protein enzyme involved in what scientists call “programmed cell death,” or apoptosis. During apoptosis a cell actively commits suicide. Scientists consider apoptosis essential to normal development and necessary to maintain a stable internal environment in the body’s tissues.

In the lab, Johnson took part in experiments, recorded and analyzed data, and participated in research meetings and seminars. Johnson, who has both a master’s in biology and an MAT from Brown, teaches science at Alan Shawn Feinstein High School in Providence.

His collaboration with Rounds and her colleagues came about through Frontiers in Physiology, a program of the American Physiological Society (APS). This program provides fellowships to help teachers delve into laboratory science.

Johnson was looking to conduct research when he learned about the program. APS shared Rounds’ name with him. She is a long-time APS member. The two met, applied, and became one of 14 teacher/mentor duos selected nationwide in 2001.

The APS fellowship program provides teachers with “a new perspective on their teaching, and the importance of hands-on, inquiry-based learning, which they carry back to their students,” said Marsha Lakes Matyas, APS education officer.

Spending the summer in a lab thrilled Johnson. “I really liked it,” he said. “As a high school teacher, you don’t always get exposed to current research. This was good experience.”

Johnson put together teaching and learning projects for his students and fellow teachers based on his work in the lab. “This opportunity focused not just on research, but on education-enhancing ways to teach science,” he said.

Rounds learned from Johnson, too, “particularly about the challenges that teachers face in public schools,” she said. Rounds is a professor of medicine and of pathology and laboratory medicine. She is also chief of pulmonary/critical care at the Providence VA.

Recently, Rounds’ daughter and stepdaughter began careers as schoolteachers. Her children are products of Providence public schools. Rounds said she learned the importance of returning something of value to her community. She urges other faculty to consider participating in similar programs that may be available through their professional societies.

“It didn’t cost a whole lot and the benefits are worth much more than any costs,” said Rounds. She credits her lab personnel with making Johnson’s stay successful, citing the help of colleagues Elizabeth Harrington, Jim Klinger, Julie Newton and Robert Bellas.

In addition to Johnson’s research opportunity, Frontiers in Physiology supported his participation in a Virginia retreat where he learned to translate his lab experience into classroom activities.

The program would have covered Johnson’s attendance at Experimental Biology 2002 as well, but he could not make the trip. That’s because Johnson plans to present a proposal to the Providence School Board in late April for a new health and science technology high school.

Additional support for Johnson’s work in Rounds’ lab came from Ocean State Research Institute. This nonprofit research foundation is based at the Providence VA.