Newswise — The Monell Center and the Springside School have been awarded a grant from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation to train high school teachers about the latest developments in taste science and chemistry.
The overall aim is to bring excitement and relevance to the high school science classroom by integrating new discoveries into the curriculum.
In the project, entitled A Taste of Chemistry, two eminent Monell research scientists, behavioral geneticist Danielle Reed, PhD and organic chemist Amos Smith, III, PhD will work with teacher Scott Stein, Head of Science at Springside School in Chestnut Hill, PA, to develop a combined chemistry and biology curriculum that focuses on the human tongue as a sophisticated chemical sensor.
The project will enable teachers to integrate up-to-the-minute scientific information into their classroom and to engage chemistry students with exciting real-life applications.
“One of the most sensitive chemical detectors is readily available to students, free of charge: the human tongue,” said Reed. “In A Taste of Chemistry, high school chemistry teachers will learn how to incorporate taste as a sensory system into classroom instruction.”
The team will develop an interdisciplinary set of five teaching units. Once developed, the units will be taught to high school science teachers during a summer workshop held every July. All materials will be made available online to teachers across the country.
“Teaching about new discoveries brings excitement into the classroom, “said Smith, who also is the Rhodes-Thompson Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. "In A Taste of Chemistry, active research scientists will work directly with an expert in science curriculum development to enable high school science teachers to thoroughly engage their students.”
Stein noted the wide-ranging advantages of the partnership of Springside with a leading research institution, “This work with Monell is emblematic of a science program at Springside that prides itself on staying on the cutting edge of science education for its own students, as well as partnering with universities and research institutions in order to train teachers to do the same at their own schools.
The Monell Chemical Senses Center is an independent nonprofit basic research institute based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Monell advances scientific understanding of the mechanisms and functions of taste and smell to benefit human health and well-being. Using an interdisciplinary approach, scientists collaborate in the programmatic areas of sensation and perception; neuroscience and molecular biology; environmental and occupational health; nutrition and appetite; health and well-being; development, aging and regeneration; and chemical ecology and communication. For more information about Monell, visit www.monell.org.
Springside School, founded in 1879, is the oldest school for girls in Philadelphia. Today, Springside is an independent college preparatory school, enrolling 642 students in Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 12 from widely diverse social and economic backgrounds, with 27% students of color. The school’s campus includes 30 acres of fields and woods adjacent to the Wissahickon watershed and Fairmount Park in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia. One large modern building, with wireless technology throughout, houses the entire school including 10 science labs, five art studios, two broadcasting studios, a Physics and Engineering Lab exclusively for lower school students, a 52,000-squarefoot athletic field house with a 10,000-square-foot solar array, five regulation athletic fields, and SMART™ technology in every classroom. For more information about Springside, visit www.springside.org.
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