Colorado College Bulletin

Science...To Go!

By SUZANNE TREGARTHEN

Which is smarter, a rat or a mouse? Can you teach a rat to read? An eager assembly of fourth graders fired these questions -- and many more like them -- at Colorado College psychology paraprofessional Clint Towle '99 recently when he taught a special unit on rats at Redeemer Lutheran School in Colorado Springs. The pupils crowded around Towle, jostling for a chance to see the white laboratory rats, "Pinky" and "The Brain."

Kids at Redeemer Lutheran School

Towle visited the elementary school to present the capstone session in the students' first unit in Classical Literature, a new program at Redeemer. The students had just finished reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, winner of the 1972 John Newberry Medal in American Literature. In the novel by Robert C. O'Brien, rats and mice imprisoned in the NIMH laboratory receive experimental injections that make them unusually wise, long-lived and crafty. The rats become so clever that they escape and later establish their own farming commune.

One particularly compelling feature of the book is its imaginative and informative presentation of the experiments performed at the fictional NIMH. Towle's lecture helped the young readers identify which elements of the text were reflective of real-world science and which were far-fetched.

Towle introduced the idea of rat training to the children, emphasizing the learning process known as chaining. "It's like when you learned to tie your shoes," he said. "First, you learned to cross the laces, then you learned to loop one lace under the other, then you learned to hold both laces and pull...," Towle explained, and a group of heads nodded in recognition. "Well, it's like that with the rats. We teach the rats to do various tricks by training them to associate basic tasks, such as pushing on a lever, with a reward (food)."

"Oh, I love science," fourth-grader Rica Molet signed as Towle passed out a take-home activity he had prepared for the children.

"This is great," added Principal David Meineke. "We've been wanting to get more people from CC involved in what we're doing here. I mean, the college is just down the street. It's terrific to see this kind of sharing."

It is precisely for the exchange of knowledge that the psychology department reaches out to schools such as Redeemer Lutheran School. Many Colorado College professors, students and staff participate at many different levels in public and private schools throughout the region.

Students in the CC neuroscience program, for example, have spoken to some 7,400 elementary school children in nearly 300 classrooms. About 1,000 high school students have heard CC neuroscience presenters, and numerous school teachers have brought students to campus to visit CC's Laboratory of Quantitative Neuromorphology, according to Neuroscience Director Professor Bob Jacobs.

The kids at Redeemer Lutheran School were certainly delighted by Clint Towle's presentation. Rather than send Towle a "thank you" card, the kids sent him a copy of the book he had never had the opportunity to read, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

Photos by Sean Cayton '94

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