New York City educators visited the Microscopy and Advanced Bioimaging Core facility with Glenn Doherty, Senior Core Research Associate, seated left, and Denise Croote, PhD, seated right.

New York City high school teacher Christine Chan, middle school teacher Elsa Rosario, and assistant principal Kathy Pham gained hands-on experience in science content, communications, and teaching at Mount Sinai as part of a Summer Research Program for Science Teachers. They recently returned to their classrooms energized with fresh ideas to inspire a love of science in their students.

Ms. Chan worked in the laboratory of renowned scientist Yasmin Hurd, PhD, the Ward-Coleman Chair of Translational Neuroscience, Director of the Addiction Institute of Mount Sinai, and Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, Neuroscience, Psychiatry, and Artificial Intelligence and Human Health.

Ms. Rosario worked in the laboratory of researcher Joel Blanchard, PhD, Associate Professor of Neuroscience, and Cell, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, and a core member of Mount Sinai’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine, who is developing in vitro models of the human brain.

Ms. Pham worked in the laboratory of researcher Yizhou Dong, PhD, Professor of Immunology and Immunotherapy, and Oncological Sciences, whose research is focused on drug discovery and delivery.

Mount Sinai was among four institutions hosting teachers through a program that was founded in 1990 by the esteemed scientist Samuel C. Silverstein, MD, at Columbia University.

“This program has created a wonderful community of science educators and researchers who are eager to enhance science education in the United States and prepare the next generation for careers in science, technology, engineering, and math,” says Denise Croote, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, and an instructor in the Center for Excellence in Youth Education at Mount Sinai, who oversaw the Mount Sinai program for The Friedman Brain Institute, which hosted the teachers.

Ms. Pham was completing her second year in this two-summer program, while Ms. Chan and Ms. Rosario expect to return next summer and continue building on their first-year experiences in the laboratories.

“We were thrilled to welcome New York City science educators to our labs, and we are excited to work together on outreach programs that support their classroom goals in the upcoming year,” says Dr. Croote.

In addition to their work in the labs, activities for all of the teachers included a small symposium and poster session, and Professional Development Days, where, at Mount Sinai, they presented a science lesson of their choice, learned about resources available to them, and toured the Microscopy and Advanced Bioimaging Core and the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute, interacting with faculty and staff.

“The experience was a perfect blend of collaboration, learning, and the joy of sharing knowledge with those who shape the future of science,” says Natalia P. Biscola, PhD, Associate Scientist in Mount Sinai’s Department of Neurology, who helped organize and develop the summer program at Mount Sinai. Adds Veronica Szarejko, Program Manager, Nash Family Department of Neuroscience, “As a mother of a high school freshman who is a science enthusiast, I am incredibly excited about the program’s ability to promote new ideas and help shape how the science curriculum is taught in New York City schools.”

For Ms. Chan, Ms. Rosario, and Ms. Pham, it was an extraordinary opportunity. Read on to learn more about what they learned and why they are passionate about teaching science.

Christine Chan, in the lab with Alexandra Chisholm, PhD

Christine Chan, ReStart Academy

Can you share a little background on your teaching experience?

I am starting my fourth year as a high school science teacher at District 79’s ReStart Academy at the Comprehensive Adolescent Rehabilitation and Education Service (CARES). I have taught biology, earth and space science, and environmental science. Our school collaborates with Mount Sinai to provide a safe space for students with mental disorders to simultaneously receive public-school education and outpatient psychiatry therapy.

Our student body is more diverse than any other school in the country. We have art school students, specialized high school students, special education students, LGBTQ+ students, and students from other minority groups. Although it can be challenging at times to have such a diverse group of students in the classroom, it does lead to unexpected perspectives and insights. Learning is bidirectional. I can inspire students and help them discover new aspects of themselves, while they introduce me to a broad variety of knowledge.

Who inspired you to become a science teacher?

I enjoyed my college science classes more than my high school science classes. While it was much more challenging, the content was much more relevant to my personal life. I found myself more easily drawn to science learning and asking more questions about the world around me. Science has enlarged my interests in health, scientific innovation, medicine, climate change, and sustainability.

I was inspired to become a science high school teacher because I think the excitement around science learning should be encountered earlier. I want to become a teacher who teaches science in a way that is relevant, rigorous, and fun for young students. I also want to inspire and motivate young people to care more and take action about major societal problems, such as health disparities, climate change, and the lack of diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.

I believe there are creative ways to teach rigorous and exciting science while also preparing students for standardized tests. For example, while we must teach fundamental concepts of the endocrine and reproductive system, why can’t we teach it in the context of our students’ real worlds? They are more likely to pay attention, care, and invest time in learning. Many of my students are transgender, so they have heard of or may be taking testosterone or estrogen shots. I can teach students fundamental biology and help them apply conceptual knowledge to understand real applications of medicine.

What did you learn through the activities, and especially working in the lab with a mentor?

My experience in the Hurd lab taught me that science and technology are advancing simultaneously. In the past, I was under the impression that people learn to code and program because they want to work in IT or make cool computer programs. As technology opens the door to large amounts of complex data, scientists need coding skills to use programs that can comprehend the information. Researchers in the Hurd lab write codes to make sense of and analyze large amounts of data from RNA sequencing. Scientists need to be flexible and lifelong learners to keep up with the latest programs and research methods.

In addition, I learned that a strong background in the biological mechanism of a research topic is essential. Without a fundamental background understanding, it is very hard to conduct literature searches, stay updated within the scientific community, understand methodology and results, and draw conclusions. Overall, the results of research projects are often very complex because the brain is very complex. There is still so much we don’t know about the brain.

What lessons will you take to the classroom?

My experience in the Hurd Lab, guidance from my lab mentor, Alexandra Chisholm, PhD, and professional development sessions have all inspired me. I plan to use some physical, interactive models acquired in my professional development sessions, to teach synapses. For example, I can have students throw balls (neurotransmitters) from the presynaptic neuron into the receptors (cups) of postsynaptic neurons. I can use this model to teach about neural communication and neuroplasticity.

I also want to encourage my students to learn coding via datacamp.com. I was enrolled in some courses during my time in the Hurd lab, where I acquired a great set of introductory skills. Educators can help students enroll in six-month coding courses that are interactive and project based. This is a great fit for my school because we don’t have a computer science teacher.

The Hurd lab also inspired me to create a bioinformatic poster project. Dr. Hurd is actively working to bridge the connection between the research community and the larger society, and she teaches her college interns the importance of this connection by assigning them a bioinformatics poster about prenatal exposure to cannabis. I think students can solidify their understanding of any topic by making posters to inform or educate local communities. For example, my students are very passionate about LGBTQ+ activism. I plan to have them create bioinformatic posters for trans teens about the mechanisms behind hormone replacement therapy.

Lastly, I plan to utilize some of the connections I built during this experience to coordinate field trips to science research labs or facilities to give students a better sense of where scientists work, what problems researchers are investigating

Elsa Rosario in the lab with Andrea Perez Arevalo, PhD

Elsa Rosario, Rachel Carson I.S. 237

Can you share a little background on your teaching experience?

I have been a middle school teacher for five years at Rachel Carson I.S. 237 in Flushing, Queens, New York. I teach sixth and seventh grade science, as well as Living Environment and Earth Science Regents Prep to eighth graders.

While middle school students have acquired a lot of skills by the time they get to me, they are still full of curiosity for the world around them. They are ready to identify problems and try to find solutions and get an allocated time for science every day in school. I also think it is the perfect time to get them interested in science through experiences, such as using scientific hands-on models to learn and answer questions. Experiences stay with us and help shape who we become.

Who inspired you to become a science teacher?

I attribute a lot of what I have accomplished to the educators who mentored and believed in me through different stages of my education career. Growing up, I never envisioned becoming a teacher, much less a science teacher. I wasn’t born in the United States, and in the country I am from, languages and math were the main subjects we focused on in middle school.

After I moved to New York City as a teenager I first got interested in science because of my Living Environment teacher talking so passionately about genetics and all the different possibilities researching genetics could lead to. This experience led me to college and a major in Biotechnology. I got the opportunity to do research as an undergraduate student, and my mentors at the time supported me to become a lab instructor, an experience that changed everything for me. It made me realize that sharing knowledge and empowering others to see the world in a critical way could impact more lives. We make choices every day, and the skills you learn in science class are very transferable to your everyday life. We just fail to see it through that lens sometimes.

What did you learn through the activities, and especially working in the lab with a mentor?

I truly believe no book or diagram can help you make a connection with something the way an experience can. I have gained an appreciation for the brain that no class in neuroscience could have ever taught me.

I have used all my senses to fully immerse myself into understanding the brain in this internship. Andrea Perez Arevalo, PhD, my mentor in the Blanchard lab, guided me through identifying a question of interest after doing research, carrying out hands-on qualitative and quantitative experiments to answer that question, and analyzing the result to make conclusions.

And, something else. I have also become a student again and that can really change your perspective, especially when you are being introduced to an unfamiliar topic. It’s the kind of feeling my students have when I stand in front of the class to teach. The internship was also a one-to-one experience, and my mentor addressed any misconceptions I might have had as I learned. That gave me a better understanding of how everything I was learning connected to my everyday life —and how I might use this experience to better teach my students how molecular interactions impact the way their brains work.

What lessons will you take to the classroom? 

One of the most important lessons I have learned from my mentor is that failure can also be a story of success in life and science! When you try something, and you fail, then you have learned what does not work. What matters is what you do with that knowledge.

Some of the experiments we completed did not give us the results we expected, and my mentor made sure we focused on taking that data for what it was and still analyzed what it meant. It is okay to have expectations when you do an experiment, that is what a hypothesis is, but focusing on that might narrow your field of view when analyzing your results. Not doing this might make us miss an opportunity to understand the process we are investigating.

I was also given the opportunity to create my own microscope slides with different types of brain cells that had different pathology. I plan to create a lab in which students collect data from these slides about how cells change in the brain when someone has a neurodegenerative disorder.

Kathy Pham giving a presentation

Kathy Pham, Bard High School Early College, Queens

Can you share a little background on your teaching experience?

I have been teaching for 12 years, primarily in Title I, low-income, and underperforming schools in the East New York and Bushwick sections of Brooklyn, where I focus on biology for grades 9 to 12. It has been a rewarding journey that allows me to engage with students and cultivate their curiosity in science. Many of my students continue to pursue their studies in the sciences as they advance to higher education.

Who inspired you to become a science teacher?

My inspiration originated from my seventh-grade science teacher who instilled in me a profound love for inquiry and discovery. We participated in science fairs, competed in science competitions, and conducted scientific research. The passion she exhibited for science was contagious, and I strive to ignite that same enthusiasm in my students.

What did you learn through the activities, and especially working in the lab with a mentor?

Working in the lab with a mentor has been incredibly beneficial. I have gained hands-on experience in the formulation of lipid nanoparticles using polysarcosine for mRNA delivery therapeutics, which has deepened my understanding of immunology and cellular biology. Additionally, this experience has underscored the importance of experimentation and critical thinking in science, reinforcing the necessity of fostering a similar environment in the classroom.

What lessons will you take to the classroom? 

I plan to create lessons that prioritize inquiry-based learning and collaborative projects. I believe that by emphasizing active learning and experimentation, I can cultivate a more dynamic and engaging atmosphere for my students.