Recently my colleague and office buddy, Nadia Johnson, was featured in the Spring 2012 issue of Inquiry, Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy’s (SESP) quarterly magazine, in an article entitled, “Higher Education Student Nadia Johnson: Motivating Girls to Study Science.” Nadia is the Co-Director for the Women’s Health Science Program (WHSP) and a graduate student at Northwestern pursuing a master’s degree in SESP’s Higher Education Administration and Policy program. Inquiry featured her as a student and Northwestern staff member who is making a difference in the lives of young women through science education.

As the Co-Director for WHSP, Nadia runs the Oncofertility Saturday Academy, along with programs in cardiology, physical science, and infectious diseases. The programs focus on bringing in girls who are under-represented in science and medicine, namely African American and Latina women, for a series of workshops open to high school juniors and seniors.  According to Nadia, “ When it comes to teaching science, we must better understand how boys and girls experience the science setting differently and how we can manage this so that girls can get just as far as boys.”

This past November, the WHSP program received the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering demonstrating the enormous impact this program has had on young women in science. For Nadia, the formula is simple, “If you excel in something and you have praise, you tend to go down that path,” as was the case for her. She also emphasizes the importance of having young women mentored by female scientists and clinicians so they see firsthand, women who are working and exceling in science fields.

Not one to rest on her morals, Nadia is using her graduate research to improve the WHSP program and make the experience not only significant for the high school students, but also for program mentors (health care providers, medical students, faculty, etc…) who also participate.  Regardless of what the data shows, Nadia knows from experience that these kinds of programs, are a win-win for everyone involved.  Read, “Higher Education Student Nadia Johnson: Motivating Girls to Study Science.”

By Nadia Johnson, Co-Director of the Oncofertility Saturday Academy

On Saturday, February 18^th, 31 high school girls hailing from six different local Chicago high schools celebrated the culmination of the sixth annual Oncofertility Saturday Academy (OSA) with a family day and graduation event. OSA is the flagship academy of the Women’s Health Science Program, the award-winning science education program that aims to inspire high school girls from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in science and medicine. OSA consists of a junior academy (JOSA) geared toward laboratory sciences, and a senior academy (SOSA) geared toward clinical sciences. Each academy includes weekly homework assignments, and three on-campus days filled with hands-on laboratory or clinical activities, workshops on such topics as sexual health and applying to medical school, and panel discussions with students or professionals in the field.

During family day, students demonstrate how much they have learned during the five-week program by presenting a capstone project, and rotating through stations that cover some of the academy topics with their families. For example, the SOSA students take their parents’ blood pressure (a skill they learned during the “Doctor for a Day” session) and the JOSA students show their parents how female fertility can be preserved through the use of follicle isolation and preservation in alginate beads (a technique pioneered by the Woodruff and Shea labs, that they learn about during the “Regulation of Ovarian Function” session).

Graduation follows family day, and is a chance for everyone – parents, siblings, and friends of the OSA students, and the over 100 OSA volunteers – to celebrate the accomplishments of the girls who were motivated and dedicated enough to complete homework assignments every week, and get up extra early on Saturdays to attend the on-campus all-day sessions. Each student gives a short speech before accepting her certificate and OSA patch. One student, a senior at Roberto Clemente High School, started her speech with: “I am very honored to be part of this program, this is the first year that it was opened to Chicago Public Schools [so] I am fortunate to be here.” Up until this year, the OSA program was only available to students from the Young Women’s Leadership Charter School. With the help of many teachers and advisors throughout the Chicago Public School system, the program leaders were able to offer the program to other qualified students this year; in addition to Clemente and Young Women’s, OSA student hailed from four other schools: Kenwood Academy, King College Prep, Lindblom Math and Science Academy, and Instituto Health and Science Career Academy.

Many other students commented on their favorite experiences during the academy in their graduation speeches. Several SOSA students remarked that using the da Vinci surgical robot, a $1.5 million system used for minimally invasive gynecologic procedures, during the “Oncofertility & Surgery” session, was their favorite part of OSA. Most of the students thanked their mentors – JOSA girls were partnered with scientist mentors and SOSA girls we paired with first year medical students. The girls were proud of what they had accomplished, and recounted their experiences during the program with a mixture of gratitude and amazement. One student, a senior at Young Women’s Leadership Charter School, concluded her graduation speech with a quote from author Sarah Caldwell: “Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can – There will always come a time in your life, when you will be grateful that you did.”

It may appear that the OSA program is designed to teach high school girls about cancer, reproductive biology, and oncofertility, but the program strives to teach so much more than that. It is a program designed to empower young women with knowledge about their own bodies; a program with over 100 university staff, student, and faculty volunteers, who serve as role models and mentors during the program; a program looking to change the face of science and medicine. OSA is a program that takes young women who are willing to learn, and hopes to turn them into the scientists, physicians and leaders of tomorrow.

Recently there has been a lot of attention brought to the concept of collaboration in academia, specifically in the sciences. Gone are the days (at least in our niche) where disciplines drew a dividing line in the sand – scientists keep to one side of the room, humanities, you go play in the other corner, etc… We understand that there cannot be one without the other and the more we can begin to build a “common language,” the better off we will be as researchers, academics, students and all around everyday people.

One of the many areas that the Oncofertility Consortium has implemented a collaborative paradigm is in the Oncofertility Saturday Academies (OSA) held throughout the country. Young women in high school from diverse backgrounds are engaged in the basic sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. We open up our lab and say, “please come in, we’d like to show you what we’re doing and teach you how to be a better scientist too.”

Some areas we focus on in our Saturday Academy along with lab work are the ethical, social, legal and religious implications of oncofertility research. Dr. Laurie Zoloth, Oncofertility Consortium member and Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern University, has been a key component of the Ethics curriculum in OSA over the last 5 years.  According to Dr. Zoloth, “one of the most important things about doing research in reproductive health is thinking about the implications for human societies, human communities and the ethical implications that each individual faces.”

Dr. Zoloth and her students put together a 2-hour course for the young women, introducing them to basic definitions, theory and a case-based method of ethical decision-making in order to demonstrate the complicated and important questions that oncofertility raises. Dr. Zoloth says, “the attempt of our section is to broaden their understanding of the competing and sharply different moral arguments that attend to this research so that they know what the basic definitions, initial conversations, and arguments that have been made to objections raised from religion and moral philosophy are to this kind of research.”

At the Oncofertility Consortium, we believe that it is imperative that the future of science be a collaborative initiative and this is the basis through which we developed our national OSA program 5 years ago. According to Dr. Zoloth, “the complex decisions that are invoked by their [research] have to be apart of their science as well. So we teach [the girls] right along with the science, so they’ll understand how intertwined the work of a scientist is with the concerns of their society.”

Stay tuned for Part 2…

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Summer Teacher Fellowship Team (L-R): Mark Prosise (Curriculum Developer), Amy Elliott, Kari Bodine, Miranda Bernhardt (Lab Coordinator), Sowmya Anjur, Kristen Perkins (Curriculum Coordinator), Nadia Reynolds (Fellowship Coordinator); not pictured: Qurrat Waheed. Photo by Eugene Galdones.

By Nadia Reynolds – The Oncofertility Summer Research Fellowship (OSRF), a program that brings science teachers and college undergraduates into the Woodruff Lab, was initiated in 2009 with the support of a two-year American Recovery & Reinvestment Act grant.  For the past three years, high school biology teachers and Oncofertility Saturday Academy (OSA) alumnae have been hired to work in the Woodruff Lab over the summer, through the OSRF program.  Two teachers and two OSA alumnae participated in 2009, and five teachers and three OSA alumnae participated in 2010.

This year, OSRF was supported by the main Oncofertility Consortium grant, and four teachers were selected to participate in the program.  The teacher fellows included: Sowmya Anjur, a veteran teacher for Illinois Math & Science Academy, Qurrat Waheed, a new teacher at Westinghouse College Prep, and Kari Bodine and Amy Elliott, both teachers at Lakes Community High School.  The teacher fellows learned about the science behind fertility preservation, the bioethical issues surrounding the field of oncofertility, and participated in the development of new high school science lab modules called the Northwestern University Biology Investigations in Oncofertility, or NUBIO.

NUBIO includes a set of labs that were developed via a collaboration between local high school teachers and researchers in the Woodruff Lab in an attempt to teach students basic biology skills and advanced biotechnology techniques through the context of cancer, reproductive science, and oncofertility.  The teacher fellows expanded upon the already developed NUBIO labs as individual summer projects, which included new units on cancer, bioethics, and patient case studies.

OSRF was a huge success this year, and we wish all of our teacher fellows the best as they return to their schools in the fall to pilot NUBIO!  And next week we welcome the OSA alumnae student fellows into the lab!

Back in February, we blogged about one of our sister programs for the Oncofertility Saturday Academy (OSA) called, the Pennsylvania Academy for Reproductive Sciences otherwise known as the PARS program. Similar to OSA, the PARS program was started to teach high school girls about the research, clinical care and bioethics of fertility and cancer.  The PARS program was so successful that one of their former students, Emtithal Mahmoud, won the Pennsylvania state-wide science fair for her oncofertility research.  We contacted Emtithal (Emi) to learn more about her experience with the PARS program and below is what she had to say:

Q: Why did you initially apply to participate in PARS?

A: I have been interested in biology and all things related since seventh grade. I just love learning about life and its many mechanisms. Also, since I want to become an MD/PhD, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to broaden my knowledge. After all, you can only learn so much in school.

Q: What did you learn from PARS? Do you think it’s a good opportunity for young women? Why?

A: I learned the fundamentals of the female reproductive system. Additionally, I was introduced to some pressing modern issues and learned how the material PARS covered could be applied to solve them. Lastly, I got a glimpse of the teamwork it takes to move the field forward. I think this is a wonderful opportunity for young women because the experience it provides is useful both academically and in every day life.

Q: Why did you decide to do a research project with us?

A: The experience I had with PARS was so wonderful that I found myself completely fascinated by the topic of reproduction. I decided to continue working with PARS in the hopes of prolonging the experience by using what I learned along with new information to go more in depth.

Q:  How did you decide on your research topic? How did you conduct the research? What did you find?

A: After learning about oncofertility at PARS and the negative effect of chemo on fertility, I really wanted to know more so I spoke with several PARS professors and some more research. I decided to research the effects of environmentally relevant doses of arsenic on the early stages of the reproductive system (follicular development, oocyte maturation, and early embryo development to the blastocyst stage). I conducted my research by doing an invitro study using a mouse model. I found that exposure at the levels I tested severely compromise follicular development and the nuclear competency of the oocyte. I also found that these doses arrest embryonic development to the blastocyst stage in a dose response fashion.

Q:  What happened with the science fair? What were your results?

A: I won second place in the local fair and first place in the regional fair.

Q: Did you feel adequately prepared to compete in the science fair based on your research efforts with our team?

A: Definitely!

Q:  What advice would you give to young women looking to become involved in science either in college or as a career?

A: Begin by seeking opportunities like these to broaden your knowledge and explore the different career options. If you are interested, learn more by asking professionals to clarify anything you don’t understand. Also, doing a research project is a fantastic way to enhance your learning experience.

It’s important to note that the success of the Oncofertility Academy is due in large part to the amazing teachers who work with these young women. One teacher in particular, Ericka Senegar-Mitchell, PhD runs an Oncofertility Academy called Be Wise in San Diego in affliation with UCSD. Among her many accomplishments, Dr. Senegar-Mitchell was recently named as a finalist for the California Teacher of the Year. We’re so proud to have such a prolific group of people committed to the field of oncofertility!

The 2011 senior class of the Oncofertility Saturday Academy

This past Saturday, 32 students from the near south side of Chicago were not hanging out at home or at the mall. Instead these juniors and seniors in high school were attending the fifth annual Oncofertility Saturday Academy at Northwestern University.  For the next four weeks, these young women will be exposed to different aspects of oncofertility in order to increase their science literacy and instill in them a passion for science.

On Saturday, the junior students, who will spend the month focusing on oncofertility research, performed experiments using fertility preservation techniques in Teresa Woodruff’s laboratory. The senior students began their clinical oncofertility experience learning how to give a pelvic exam and practicing on the same plastic models that medical students use. The Oncofertility Saturday Academy, part of the Women’s Health Science Program, also exposes these students, from Young Women’s Leadership Charter School on the near south side of Chicago, to careers in science and medicine. This Saturday, the juniors were paired with Physician Assistant trainees while the seniors learned from medical students. The high school students also listened as Tiffany, a cancer survivor, and her husband discussed their experiences fighting cancer and preserving their ability to have biological children.

The Oncofertility Consortium also provides similar informal education programs in San Diego, Oregon, and, most recently, Philadelphia. This past summer, investigators and clinicians from the University of Pennsylvania started the Pennsylvania Academy for Reproductive Sciences (PARS) to teach 10 high school girls about the research, clinical care, and the bioethics of fertility and cancer.

The Philadelphia group held another session this fall and are preparing for a spring academy, which begins on March 5^th. The young women in this program range from freshman to seniors and attend schools throughout the greater Philadelphia region. The girls beginning the PARS program in March will have the opportunity to perform in vitro fertilization of mice eggs, see a working operating room, and even perform a transabdominal obstetrical exam on one of the pregnant facilitators of the program! Over the next few weeks we will continue to update our readers on the national activities of the Oncofertility Saturday Academy.

In 2007, the Oncofertility Consortium joined forces with the Women’s Health Science Program (WHSP) to launch a unique high school-university science partnership called the Oncofertility Saturday Academy. This weekend program allows girls in the Chicago Public Schools to learn about scientific and clinical concepts in oncofertility. Since that time, the oncofertility academy has expanded nationwide and acted as a model for other programs within WHSP for high school students to learn about cardiology and infectious diseases. The model has been expanded to teach students about the physical sciences through the Physical Science Weekend Academy.

Early Saturday morning, 14 girls from Young Women’s Leadership Charter School in Chicago, entered the hallowed halls of Northwestern University to learn about the physical attributes of proteins. Lead scientist and Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology, Heather Pinkett, PhD, began with a discussion on the structures of proteins and the techniques scientists use to determine these shapes. Then it was off to the lab!

The gaggle of sophomore, junior, and senior girls worked in Crystal Teams to analyze proteins including P-glycoprotein, HIV-1 protease, and pepsin. They purified their proteins, performed crystallography, and used visualization techniques usually restricted to advanced college students. With the information gleaned from their experimental results, the girls were able to relate the structures of the proteins to their function within the human body.

The attendees at the Physical Science Weekend Academy also determined the amino acid building blocks of their proteins. Once they figured out this sequence, they made beaded bracelets where each bead correlated with a specific amino acid so they could show off their “sequences” to their friends and family and share their knowledge on the function of the proteins.

According to the lead educators of the program, Megan Faurot, MEd, and Cathryn Smeyers, MAT, this introductory year of the Physical Science Weekend Academy was so successful that next year, they plan on delivering an even larger academy with more experiments and workshops. Hopefully, further dissemination of the Oncofertility Saturday Academy model will instill even more young women with a  love of science.

In 2007, the Women’s Health Science Program developed a series of classes to give 16 high school students a chance to experience cutting-edge scientific research at Northwestern University. The program, called the Oncofertility Saturday Academy (OSA), is designed to “connect students to what’s happening in the real world,” says Megan Faurot, the Director of Education Programs for the group.  By 2009, the OSA grew to include 29 juniors and seniors in high school and became the subject of a documentary film entitled “OSA: Sisters in Science.” This film follows 6 Chicago public school students as they experience the rare opportunity to enter and perform experiments in a scientific laboratory. These girls carry out techniques from the emerging field of Oncofertility, which benefits young patients who lose their fertility due to cancer treatments. Their inspiring story premiers this Sunday, June 6 on the Big Ten Network.

Watch the trailer here.

While many education programs exist where professionals visit a school to instruct students, Faurot describes that the Oncofertility Saturday Academy decided the “best way to introduce and expose students to science is to bring the students to the university.” The Women’s Health Science Program, which has educated more than 70 girls to date, also teaches students about careers in science and medicine. Rather than listen to a lecture, students learn about potential careers by interacting with a diverse cast of instructors, including college-level students, research technicians, professors, and medical professionals. The young women in the documentary exit the Oncofertility Saturday Academy with both a greater interest in science and the tools to achieve their dreams.

Big Ten Network, will air the documentary to 55 million households across the nation on the following dates (all times are CT):

Sunday, June 6, 2010 – 6:00 p.m.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010 – 12:00 p.m.

Thursday, June 10, 2010 – 3:00 a.m.

Wednesday, June 30 – 12:00 p.m.

Victor O’Halloran

———

Last night was the world premiere of OSA: Sisters In Science, a documentary detailing the Oncofertility Saturday Academy. This documentary told the story of what happens when young women from a small South side Chicago high school gets introduced to an emerging science like Oncofertility.  The film documented the hands-on experiences, classes, and testimonies of the young women of Young Women’s Leadership Charter School as they spent their Saturdays interacting with the Woodruff lab and other resources from Northwestern in 2009.

A very personal story was told about how these high school students, intrepidly took on challenging experiments dissecting mice, ovaries in the uterus, isolating follicles, embedding them in alginate, measuring hormones, fertilizing real mouse eggs, and spending exclusive time on the Da Vinci Surgical Robot.

Most importantly, the documentary chronicled the evolution of the OSA students, from passionate young women in high school waiting to be sparked by inspiration, to JOSAS (Junior OSA Sisters) to SOSAS (Senior OSA Sisters).  It also told the story of these young women’s families and the role this experience had in reaffirming a relationship of empowerment through education.  It was clear that every parent thought their child capable of any achievement, and OSA gave that potential a shape and form that many parents can’t imagine.

Directors of the program, Megan Faurot and Teresa Woodruff held a panel along with the film’s creators; producer Harlan Wallach, director Stefani Foster, and the film’s editor Erin Kitzinger.  The panel was a source of reflection and enthusiasm for the whole audience, including OSA alumni, POSA (Parents in OSA), as well as attendees of the Oncofertility Consortium‘s on-going Annual Summit.

“This is a story of expanding horizons…you all have the potential to be the next generation of leaders, of teachers of scientists and creative thinkers. You have the opportunity to pass on to the next generation a world more vibrant, more creative and with more opportunity than the world you inherited.” –From Teresa Woodruff’s opening remarks.

The program is in its third year and is continuing strong.

The inaugural session of the Cardiology Summer Academy just ended. It gave seniors from the Young Women’s Leadership Academy Charter School a chance to experience the world of the heart through real-life experiences at Northwestern Memorial’s Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute. The program’s success was noted in an article by the Chicago Tribune.

The week-long summer experience for the small group of high school students is one of the science academies run by the Women’s Health Science Program at the Feinberg School of Medicine. The Summer Academy is designed to educate female high school students who are considering pursuing a career in science or medicine and to teach them about cardiology and cardiovascular health.

Megan Faurot is the director of education programs for the Institute for Women’s Health Research at Feinberg. She is also in charge of the Oncofertility Saturday Academy. “My goal is to create engaging and authentic learning experiences for high school girls to inspire and prepare them to successfully pursue careers in science and medicine,” she said.

The students participate in different activities such as watching cardiac surgery, performing dissections and getting CPR certified. Another major goal of the program is to increase the students’ knowledge of their own heart health so the curriculum also includes daily personal training sessions, lectures on heart disease and prevention and heart-healthy cooking demonstrations and meals.