ASPB EDUCATION FORUM

Mentoring with PlantingScience: Feedback from ASPB’s Master Plant Science Team

PlantingScience is a learning and research resource that connects middle and high school students engaged with their teachers in hands-on plant investigations with scientist mentors who are part of a Master Plant Science Team (MPST). MPST mentors help middle and high school students and their classroom teachers develop practical, insightful research skills while investigating the plant themes and teaching modules provided by the PlantingScience program. PlantingScience was conceived and developed by the Botanical Society of America (BSA). ASPB joins a number of other organizations to support BSA in this vital outreach resource.

The MPST includes graduate students and postdocs interested in this multi-tiered collaboration. As an official partner of PlantingScience since 2006, ASPB sponsored five graduate student MPST mentors during the 2007–2008 and 2008–2009 academic years. For the academic year that ended in June 2010, ASPB sponsored seven MPST mentors. When asked about their experiences mentoring school-age students engaged with PlantingScience (PS), three of the 2009–2010 mentors had these comments:

	The organizers were fantastic! I received good feedback and prompt responses. I had great teams this year. The teachers never really communicated with me, but my teams were really interactive. I did the Arabidopsis field testing and pollen groups. Both were a lot of fun! For the Arabidopsis modules, the sucrose assay had some problems, but I think we had some ideas to help make it go smoother. I would love to participate in PS again next school year. This experience has contributed to my overall love of teaching, and I am planning on pursuing a teaching career. I would and have recommended PS to others who express an interest in mentoring/teaching. I think it is a great way to break into mentoring and to get to work with non-university students.
	Lisa Kanizay University of Georgia, Plant Biology
	At first, it was a little confusing to keep track of my teams because they were from the same school, but once I was able to fully remember their team names, it became easier to know which team I had corresponded with. I also made sure to store an update in a separate folder as soon as I corresponded with a team so that any message left in my inbox meant that I had not made contact. I always received a quick reply [from the organizers] when I had a question. Also, the frequent reminders and updates from organizers were very helpful. It was curious that the teachers did not seem to be prodding the students along as far as I could tell. It’s quite possible that the teachers looked over our correspondence, but I expected some participation from the teachers in my messages with the students. Last year, I recall one of the teachers urging the students to think about answering particular questions that they were neglecting to answer. That kind of thing did not happen this year. The students are fun. Even if they don’t always follow up in answering my questions or comments, they seem to be enjoying themselves. I also find the challenge of trying to keep them focused stimulating. Whether it’s in front of a classroom or mentoring online, the most difficult aspect of teaching for me is getting students to focus and to be a little more serious about their inquiries. I find that giving real-life examples that they can relate to and that are not so science focused always seems to pique their curiosity. My experience always compels me to try to find those examples and connect them to the science that they are doing. It’s fun. It’s stimulating. It’s rewarding. And in some measure, PS helps to shape the scientific literacy of future generations.
	William Perez City University of New York Lehman College
	I think this is a wonderful program that is engaging for all participants. I love that mentors can put in the time when their schedule allows and that students are able to talk with an expert. I find the staff at PS extremely attentive to the needs of teachers and mentors. However, I personally had a challenging semester in coordinating with the teacher for starting dates and planned experiments. I think this challenge was due to various problems in communication and planning. My efforts were well supported by PS organizers. When I was having trouble contacting the teacher, PS staff stepped in and helped out. This is not my first time mentoring, but I continue to be surprised about how difficult it can be [for the students] to fit PS activities into a daily schedule at school. Computer time seems very limited as well as time for the students to plan their own experiment. I really wish that we could get students online during the planning stage. Even if the whole class is asking the same question, I think it is critical for students to plan out their experiment and think through what, how, and why they are doing each step. The actual doing is important to science, but that is what the students already have in science class. The novel part of this program is to discuss the planning and analysis of experiments, which, in my limited experience, are not emphasized. I would happily mentor again. I think it is so important to help teachers and students experience science. Even though there were a few bumps in the road, it is still very rewarding to know that experiments were tried and students came away with some new knowledge. This has been an overall positive experience and has shown me that there is a great need for continued science education outreach.
	Amber Robertson Smith University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Horticulture