National Museum of Natural History
Research Experiences for Teachers
List of Nominees
2004

Virginia Azuree   |   Doris Muller

The Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) initiative at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History is an opportunity for high school science teachers to spend five weeks during the month of July participating in the research activities with a Smithsonian scientist.

Teachers partner with a Smithsonian scientist to investigate a natural history research topic as well as participate in a series of lectures, workshops, demonstrations, behind-the-scenes tours, and field trips.

The goals of the RET program (ref: NSF 02-090) are to establish long-term collaborative, mutually rewarding relationships between researchers and classroom science teachers, targeting high school teachers from inner city schools and less well endowed school districts. The hope is to bring new insight into the daily classroom by providing a research opportunity for those teachers who have not had any prior experience and to provide sustained follow-up interaction between the host mentor and supported teacher and their classroom. Funding is from the biological sciences with emphasis on projects within this scientific arena.

The RET at the Smithsonian initiative will be hosted at the National Museum of Natural History in partnership with our Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, called the Research Training Program (RTP).

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Research Experiences for Teachers

Gender: Female. Ethnicity/Race: Institution: Richard Montgomery High School. Status: Chemistry and Biology Teacher. Sponsor: Participation in the 2004 summer session of the Research Experiences for Teachers is pending the award of a supplement grant from National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates program - Award #DBI-0243512.

Virginia Azuree
vazuree@comcast.net

Ms. Azuree has a BS and MS in Biochemistry from Mary Washington College and a Masters of Education from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a "career-changer" coming to education from a background in the pharmaceutical and medical research industries. She is in her fourth year as a teacher at Richard Montgomery High School, having 20 years prior experience as a medical subject heading indexer for the National Library of Medicine. She has experienced at literature searching and served as a database supervisor for AIDS Clinical Trials. She has lab bench experience at the National Institute of Health (NIH) identifying and isolating proteins.

Ms. Azuree speaks Portuguese and French as well as understanding Spanish. This allows a unique rapport with her school's diverse population. She is also learning Mandarin as well as Russian.

About my school: Richard Montgomery High School serves a diverse population of approximately 1,900 students in grades 9 through 12. Our school is located in Rockville, Maryland, a suburb of Washington D.C. Over the past several years, the school has been featured in Newsweek magazine as one the top 100 schools in the nation. Richard Montgomery High School was recently awarded the Blue Ribbon in Education Award by the United States Department of Education. We believe in providing a strong academic program with high expectations and rigor. Richard Montgomery High School is proud to be home to one of the top International Baccalaureate Programs in the world as well as the new Middle Years Programme for outstanding students.

The current student enrollment is: 1,851

Other data

We encourage all of our students to push themselves to achieve the most that they can. We have special programs for our African American and Hispanic students, two population who have traditionally been left behind in the push for greater academic rigor.

About my classroom: I currently teach MYP chemistry and Honors Chemistry. The MYP program is designed to prepare students for participation in the International Baccalaureate and AP classes. I wrote the curriculum for MYP chemistry that we use at Richard Montgomery High School. Our focus includes areas of interaction including the environment, community service, approaches to learning, and health systems.

What I'll bring back to my classroom after a summer at the Smithsonian: Most of my previous laboratory research experience involved proteins, hormones, and body systems of living organisms. My data was for present day and future projections. I am fascinated by Dr. Owsley’s work because I will be looking at data that provides a window into the past. Teenagers are extraordinarily present focused. I see one of my jobs in teaching/learning to help them expand that narrow vision, not just to the often encouraged future but to learning from the past. This way they can see themselves in the whole picture of human growth and civilization. I have recently brought more of the history of science into the classroom by providing the “rest of the story” so to speak of various discoveries and ideas. My students are galvanized by seeing these past scientists as real human beings within a culture and society that heavily impacted their thoughts, discoveries, everyday life. Another aspect of Dr. Owsley’s work that I hope to learn from is that my students are often convinced of whatever they see on the internet and the process of using data to come to possible conclusions (emphasis on possible) is foreign to them. I intend to journal this summer so that my experience will be as alive as possible – mistakes, serendipity, sometimes the tedious but necessary plowing through data to find the nugget of gold.

My hope is that Dr. Owsley and I will continue to communicate by email and/or telephone. I would like to bring my students out to the Smithsonian to see the collection relevant to my summer work. In addition, I think that Dr. Owsley might benefit by hearing from my students in the sense that I would present parts of what I have done over the summer – in terms of technique and search strategies and have my students respond. In other words, to have my students critique my work. This can be a very generative process. Students are constantly confronted with critique from their teachers; it can be an enormous learning experience for teachers to be critiqued by their students. I would like to be able to present my students with the areas of research where we got stuck and see what they might have to say.

I speak Portuguese and French as well as understanding Spanish. This allows me a rapport with so many of our school’s population. It is astonishing how the children respond when you are able to communicate with them in their home language! I am attempting to learn a little Mandarin and perhaps a touch of Russian although the latter is truly hard for me to keep in my head.

Research Advisor:

Dr. Douglas Owsley
Phone: (202) 786-2553
E-mail: owsley.douglas@nmnh.si.edu

Curator, Physical Anthropology. B.A. (1973) University of Wyoming; M.A. (1975), Ph.D. (1978) University of Tennessee. Research specialties: skeletal biology; forensic anthropology; historic populations in North America; North American Plains Indians; Polynesia. Science Unit: Department of Anthropology.

Project Title: Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Analyses of Colonial Period Human Skeletons from Virginia and Maryland

Project Description: This research project involves a team of 2 science teachers in the analysis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data recovered from human remains from several colonial period sites in Virginia and Maryland. The usefulness of isotopic analyses in studying diet has been well-documented (Vogel and van der Merwe 1977; van der Merwe and Vogel 1978; Ambrose and DeNiro 1986; Keegan 1989; Buikstra and Milner 1991; Tieszen et al. 1992). The method is based on differences in the isotopic signals of foods and the transmission of these differences to the tissues of the consumer (DeNiro and Epstein 1978, 1981). Dietary patterns are distinguishable by measuring these differences, with the values presented as ÿ13C (delta carbon) and ÿ15N (delta nitrogen) values in parts per mil.

Previous research has shown a difference in the carbon isotope signatures of historic period Americans versus western Europeans, with the former having more positive values (Ubelaker and Owsley 2003). This difference has been traced to greater dependence on corn (maize) in the New World, versus cereal grains such as wheat, barley, and rye in Europe. The distinction between these plant groups is a biochemical difference in photosynthesis (i.e., C3 versus C4 photosynthesis pathways) which is transferred through the food chain, resulting in a bone isotope signal that characterizes the place of origin. Thus, with Historic populations, a more positive isotopic signature is more likely to indicate long-standing residence in the Americas. More negative values are characteristic of western European diets.

This work is being conducted as part of a comprehensive temporal study of Colonial period European and African skeletal remains from Maryland and Virginia. Previously, we have analyzed Chesapeake samples provided by Historic St. Marys City, Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, Colonial National Historical Park, the U.S. Army, Darnalls Chance, Flowerdew Hundred, and several others. Permission has been obtained to sample additional remains at the National Museum of Natural History. Samples from selected specimens will be sent to the Stable Isotope Laboratory of Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for processing and analysis.

The teacher working on this project will:

1) Assist with the selection and basic description of additional samples from the NMNH skeletal collection.
2) Complete background research on stable isotope analysis for dietary reconstruction including
a) a literature search for comparative data, and
b) a review of Colonial period dietary practices

3) Complete a directed statistical analysis of specific components of the data.

4) Summarize the findings.

Application for the Classroom:

Research Results

Virtual Poster

Project Summary

Letter of Gratitude

Research Advisor:

Dr. Douglas Owsley
Phone: (202) 786-2553
E-mail: owsley.douglas@nmnh.si.edu

Curator, Physical Anthropology. B.A. (1973) University of Wyoming; M.A. (1975), Ph.D. (1978) University of Tennessee. Research specialties: skeletal biology; forensic anthropology; historic populations in North America; North American Plains Indians; Polynesia. Science Unit: Department of Anthropology.

Project Title: Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Analyses of Colonial Period Human Skeletons from Virginia and Maryland

Project Description: This research project involves a team of 2 science teachers in the analysis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data recovered from human remains from several colonial period sites in Virginia and Maryland. The usefulness of isotopic analyses in studying diet has been well-documented (Vogel and van der Merwe 1977; van der Merwe and Vogel 1978; Ambrose and DeNiro 1986; Keegan 1989; Buikstra and Milner 1991; Tieszen et al. 1992). The method is based on differences in the isotopic signals of foods and the transmission of these differences to the tissues of the consumer (DeNiro and Epstein 1978, 1981). Dietary patterns are distinguishable by measuring these differences, with the values presented as ÿ13C (delta carbon) and ÿ15N (delta nitrogen) values in parts per mil.

Previous research has shown a difference in the carbon isotope signatures of historic period Americans versus western Europeans, with the former having more positive values (Ubelaker and Owsley 2003). This difference has been traced to greater dependence on corn (maize) in the New World, versus cereal grains such as wheat, barley, and rye in Europe. The distinction between these plant groups is a biochemical difference in photosynthesis (i.e., C3 versus C4 photosynthesis pathways) which is transferred through the food chain, resulting in a bone isotope signal that characterizes the place of origin. Thus, with Historic populations, a more positive isotopic signature is more likely to indicate long-standing residence in the Americas. More negative values are characteristic of western European diets.

This work is being conducted as part of a comprehensive temporal study of Colonial period European and African skeletal remains from Maryland and Virginia. Previously, we have analyzed Chesapeake samples provided by Historic St. Marys City, Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, Colonial National Historical Park, the U.S. Army, Darnalls Chance, Flowerdew Hundred, and several others. Permission has been obtained to sample additional remains at the National Museum of Natural History. Samples from selected specimens will be sent to the Stable Isotope Laboratory of Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for processing and analysis.

The teacher working on this project will:

1) Assist with the selection and basic description of additional samples from the NMNH skeletal collection.
2) Complete background research on stable isotope analysis for dietary reconstruction including
a) a literature search for comparative data, and
b) a review of Colonial period dietary practices

3) Complete a directed statistical analysis of specific components of the data.

4) Summarize the findings.

Application for the Classroom: