Scientists play three quite different roles in the
ESEP/Atlanta program.
1. Scientists as the Driving force. There are
many important figures in this large program, but if one
had to single out one person to profile, it would be
Principal Investigator Robert DeHaan, the William P.
Timmie Professor in Emory University Medical School's
Department of Cell Biology. DeHaan wrote the original
grant proposal for ESEP. He also brought his university
into the program as the fiscal agent for ESEP, and
created and led the Leadership Team that applied to and
was accepted to attend the National Science
Resources Center's Leadership Institute in 1995 .The
co-PIs are Dr. Vernon Allwood, Director of the Office of
Community Relations and Student Affairs of the Morehouse
School of Medicine; Dr. Molly Weinburgh, an assistant
professor in the College of Education, Georgia State
University; and Dr. Benjamin O. Canada, Superintendent of
the Atlantic Public Schools.
(The ESEP/Atlanta program is one of several in which
scientists have been driving forces. Others include the CAPSI program and the SEP (future
Link) program, as well as the Hands-on Activity
Science Project [HASP] in Huntsville, Alabama.)
2. Scientists as Mentors. The 13 or 14 ESEP
institution science faculty members who currently attend
reflection sessions (and 25 others who have participated
recently) are "scientist-mentors" in that they
are available to the science partners outside of the
reflection sessions as resources, to provide accurate
scientific information and to share science materials.
Mentors may also visit classrooms and work with
individual teachers. Scientist mentors are not drawn only
from the faculty. Post-doctoral fellows and technical
associates also serve as mentors.
3. Scientists as Actors in Participatory Change:
The Cultural Anthropologist. A unique feature of the
ESEP program is the contribution of cultural
anthropologist Kathryn Kozaitis.
Dr. Kozaitis plays two distinct roles. She visits the
reflection sessions of the science-education partners at
least twice per term, where she leads discussions on how
ethnic background and gender can affect children's
learning styles and how these styles can be discovered
and responded to in the classroom. She also leads a
segment of every training workshop with teachers, helping
them play an active role and become vested in the changes
produced by the program, a process that the ESEP program
characterizes as "participatory
reform."
