Young Scholars Program

On March 25^th, Carolyn Slayman, Deputy Dean for Academic and Scientific Affairs, issued a challenge to the Yale community. Drawing on a letter from NIH Director, Francis Collins, Dean Slayman noted that American 15-year-olds currently rank 29^th out of 56 countries in science achievement. She wrote that this “disappointing state of affairs” is something “that we as Yale faculty members have the power to improve in our local school districts.” She urged all of us to help strengthen science education in America and to raise the level of current scientific understanding, enthusiasm and performance among US students by reaching out to the New Haven area public schools.

One of the ways the Yale School of Public Health has responded to this challenge is with the creation of the Yale Center for Analytical Sciences Young Scholars Program. This unique program was designed by a panel of inspired and dedicated high school science teachers in conjunction with the educators and statistical scientists at Yale’s brand new Center for Analytical Sciences. “We were just facilitators,” commented Casey King, Executive Director of YCAS. “It was these talented dedicated high school educators who helped us understand what was needed. We simply listened.” With the help of the high school teachers, four talented New Haven Area public school students were selected for the inaugural program that was launched in the summer of 2010 and expanded to eight students in the summer of 2011. 

Every morning, the Young Scholars participated in an intensive introduction to Biostatistics sitting side-by-side with the Yale Clinical Faculty. During the lecture, students were challenged to respond to text questions that both reflected and reinforced the material covered. Prizes, including an iPad,were awarded to the student that responded most accurately in the shortest period of time. http://fridayletter.asph.org/article_view.cfm?FLE_Index=16087&FL_Index=1683

After the morning’s lecture, they were debriefed by Noelle Shipley a gifted high school statistics teacher at Wilbur Cross High School. At lunch, they received a “tour” of the different aspects of Public Health through the eyes of talented PhD students. Each day, a different PhD student came to share his or her experiences “finding” science, and to discuss his or her particular research area. Topics included everything from using Bump technology for the IPhone to track infectious disease, to childhood asthma studies in Connecticut. The Young Scholars were exposed to areas of research that many did not know even existed.

After lunch, the Young Scholars, none of whom had ever learned any programming, were given an introduction to the open-source programming language “R”. The response has been tremendous. After the two-week program, one young man, Anthony, commented, “You know, when you take a stats class in high school, you sort of wonder what’s the point, why does this matter? This summer. . .I sort of get it.”