Leading young scientists toward new destinies
Photo by Karen Tam

Jory Weintraub and his colleagues travel the highways and local roads spanning North Carolina to spread their enthusiasm for science and education. They ride aboard Destiny, a 40-foot long bus refurbished as a rolling science and computer lab. Their mission is to advance high school science education to interest students in pursuing advanced science degrees and future science careers.

When Destiny arrives at a North Carolina high school, students may be charged with solving a murder by using sophisticated DNA fingerprinting techniques to examine evidence left by the perpetrator. At another school, students may need to identify which of three patients is afflicted with sickle cell disease by using gel electro-phoresis and scouring the Internet to find information vital to their diagnosis. Equipped with IBM laptops and wireless Internet, the students plunge into their research and investigations.

“The feedback from students is overwhelming,” says Weintraub. “They say things like, ‘I never thought science could be so interesting, ’ or ‘I always thought this would be so confusing. ’”

Weintraub is a teacher first and a researcher second, an unusual circumstance for people with a doctorate in science. “The opportunity to get advanced training in science education is really hard to come by because there aren’t a lot of people who choose to get a Ph.D. and then focus entirely on education,” says Weintraub. He came to Carolina in 1993, was awarded a Royster Dissertation Fellowship and earned his Ph.D. in immunology in 1999. During that time Weintraub, his wife and their two children developed roots in North Carolina, and they wanted to stay.

The challenge for him was to find a post-doctoral opportunity that emphasized teaching and course development, to remain in North Carolina, and to find funding allowing him to do both.

Weintraub’s search for the ideal post-doctoral opportunity led him to the Partnership for Minority Advancement in the Biomolecular Sciences, or PMABS. PMABS started 12 years ago in the biology department at Carolina. The consortium comprises Carolina and seven historically minority universities (HMUs) in North Carolina. The consortium’s mission is to increase the representation and advancement of under-represented groups in science careers.

One manifestation of the consortium’s goals is the Destiny bus. Another is the distributed learning network, or DLN. Weintraub and his colleagues are developing technology that will enable them to video and teleconference Weintraub’s immunology class to each of the campuses in the PMABS consortium. The distributed learning network classes are fully interactive, and students on the seven campuses will take the class simultaneously with students at Carolina. “The goal of DLN,” says Weintraub, “is to provide students at all of the partner universities access to courses which would not otherwise be available to them.”

Weintraub believes that distance learning will not hinder students who are not attending the classes where the instructor is physically present. “As someone whose main passion is teaching, I still think that the most powerful thing is students interacting directly with the instructor. But the alternative in this case is students never get the class otherwise,” Weintraub said. “So if the difference is never having immunology or having it via distance, as long as we’re putting every effort we can into making it an offered course, it’s still a much preferable option than not getting it at all.” Once the technology is perfected, Weintraub hopes to teach at Chapel Hill and at Pembroke via the distributed learning network in the spring semester.

Weintraub’s classes at Carolina and at the historically minority universities are equally demanding. He has paired his students at Fayetteville State University with his Carolina students in collaborative projects. Weintraub says the HMUs have good quality education and educators, but many do not have the same access to resources that Carolina does.

Weintraub’s commitment to closing the resource gap is also evident in his work with science and technology professionals. “We take trained research scientists who are interested in science education and combine them with trained information technology experts,” Weintraub said. “The goal is to try to advance the overarching goals of PMABS through the creative use of emerging and existing technologies. We can use IT to improve science education and hopefully give students at HMUs a better way to have a career in science.”

Photo by Karen Tam

Inside a science laboratory on wheels.

Weintraub said that the partnership of the administration and faculty of the historically minority universities is essential to the success of PMABS, the Destiny bus, and the distributed learning network. “This is not a charity thing,” Weintraub says. “It’s a team effort.”

Jory Weintraub’s work is very rewarding. He is happy to be in North Carolina and working to improve science education all over the state; as far west as Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte to as far east as Elizabeth City State University in Elizabeth City.

“Now I feel like I’m in a situation that is really important,” Weintraub says. “I feel like I’m helping people directly.”

- Joy Buchanan

© 2002, The Graduate School, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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