Community Outreach and Education Program COEP in CEHS

1
Community Outreach and Education Program (COEP)
in CEHS
Center for Environmental Health Sciences (CEHS)
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts Kathy Vandiver (COEP
Director ), Associate Professor Bevin Engelward
(COEP Co-Director), and Amy Fitzgerald (COEP
Coordinator)
CEHS and the MIT Museum partner to develop a
gallery-based outreach program, a learning lab
that teaches protein synthesis with LEGO DNA
models Kathleen Vandiver, Beryl Rosenthal, Ari
Epstein, Jon Bijur, Amy Fitzgerald and Bevin
Engelward
What are the programs objectives?
We are teaching pilot classes in the gallery
space now.
The MIT Museum and the CEHS Community Outreach
and Education Program are collaborating in the
development of the first of the Museum's Learning
Labs. The purpose of this gallery-based
experience is to bring middle and high school
classes to the museum to help them understand the
process of protein synthesis in the cell through
the use of manipulatives. During the course of
the facilitated activities, connections between
environmental health science and cellular events
such as DNA damage will be explained.

In this phase two of the project, the room and
the prototype components are being tested in
several rounds of formative evaluations with
groups of students from local schools. This time
provides for feedback. It is terrific to be able
to learn what we really need to do to create a
space which meets our needs. For this program,
the class is divided into two groups which rotate
through two activities. For one hour, the
students interact with the Concord Consortium
software, Molecular Workbench, led by Jon Bijur
(Museum Educator). For the second hour, they
simulate protein synthesis using the LEGO
molecules in the Learning Lab, led by Kathy
Vandiver (COEP Director and PI of this project).
Terrascope UROPs led the way.
As Beryl Rosenthal (Director of Exhibitions and
Public Programs and Co-PI) had intended, this
project has created an opportunity for MIT
students to become more involved with MIT
Museum's exhibition development. Seven student
designers, graduates from the Terrascope program,
were recruited and guided by Ari Epstein
(Terrascope Lecturer) to complete the first
design phase. The students produced a prototype
exhibit in January 2006 during IAP.
All seven undergrads who worked on the Cell
exhibit had prior experience in exhibit
development because they participated as
freshman in the Terrascope program at MIT. It
was a tall order though, removing the old
exhibit, repainting the gallery, and designing
and fabricating a whole new exhibit-- all in
under 4 weeks of time! The student team
producing the first prototype included Scott,
shown in the photo Scott S. Chilton, Kristina M
Holton, Mary C Machado, Julie M Proulx, Lisa
Song, Noelle Steber, Leanne Veldhuis
Manipulating the molecules
Kathy Vandiver developed the LEGO DNA sets for
the LEGO Education Company. The additional LEGO
molecules needed for the LEGO Protein Synthesis
sets are being field tested with the exhibit.
Students have the fun of creating a LEGO gene and
producing a LEGO protein on a ribosome as shown
above. Each group of students produces a chain of
amino acids and then these four chains are
folded and placed in the cell membrane, forming a
functional channel protein in the membrane.
Whats next?
Put museum map here
This Learning Lab represents a unique challenge
in museum design. It should be interactive for
two different types of visitors with vastly
different needs the random visitor to the MIT
Museum and a classroom group of students who are
are working with a museum facilitator. Above is a
prototype table top with its activity to be used
when the Learning Lab does not have a class in
session. For the regular museum visitors, the
creative Terrascope group came up with several
table top activities to be placed on the ribosome
tables, (See the gallery floorplan, lower right
on this poster.)
These are photographs of a scale model of the
future gallery. This gallery incorporates many of
the valuable features we learned from the
original prototype. The dark blue area of the
room represents the nucleus of the cell. The
white square (above) is a large table where the
students transcribe the LEGO DNA into mRNA. The
smaller semi-circular white tables (left)
represent the ribosomes in the cells cytoplasm.
Here the students perform translation with the
tRNA molecules. The physical space becomes
instructive.
With a sign posted to explain to visitors that
the museum was experimenting in this space, the
gallery was opened. Visitors interactions were
observed and recorded. The two most popular
areas of the space were 1) the
intergenerational activity, Are you taller
than your cells DNA? where a six foot length of
uncoiled DNA was depicted and 2) the black
voting booth sized display that intoned, A
mysterious life-controlling substance lies behind
these curtains. Do you dare look? Those who
dared found two large tubes of gooey looking
white stuff! A nice bit of reality, after all the
colorful cartoons and diagrams.
This exhibit is scheduled to be completed
November 2006 after a commercial fabrication
phase and several more rounds of formative and
summative evaluations with students. 
Supported by NIH P30-ES02109