mentor a student through a research project
in the laboratory. This mentorship should be
an active intellectual involvement of the stu-dent in the research, not simply having the
student “shadow” in the lab. The project
should include a beginning (framing a bio-
logical question and hypothesis), a middle
(performing the experiments to test the
hypothesis), and an end (writing a report
that summarizes the entire project). The stu-
dent does not need to win the Nobel Prize
with the project, nor even produce a publica-
tion, but it is cheating the student if a projectdoes not contain these elements. Other ways
that a scientist can get experience teaching at
the high school level include helping a local
school system with the biology curriculum,
or teaching a course in contemporary meth-
ods in cellular or molecular biology for high
school teachers.
Local schools (public or private) are
always interested in taking advantage of the
experiences of scientists to teach. For private
schools, it is easier to talk directly with prin-
cipals or science department chairs, while in
public schools, administrators (such as cur-
ricular specialists) will be the initial contacts.
These officials can be used as sources of infor-
mation and advice for an application. Take
advantage of their knowledge and willing-
ness to help.
Teaching high school is a wonderful way
to use your research experiences to influence
a child’s life. The satisfaction of having a for-
mer student return to tell you that he or she is
becoming a biologist because of your teach-
ing matches the thrills of an acceptance letter
from Natureor a positive pink sheet for an
NIH grant application. ■22 CAREER ADVICE FOR LIFE SCIENTISTS
The satisfaction of having a
former student return to tell
you she is becoming a biologist
because of your teaching matches
the thrills of an acceptance
letter from Natureor a positive
pink sheet for an NIH grant
application.