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GIFT at Yerkes: A Summer Spent Monkeying Around
by Andrew Kerr
December 2008

If you have not seen our video about the summer 2008 GIFT program then head on over to YouTube and give it ten minutes of your time. But because brevity is essential when producing such a video, the segment regarding the Emory Yerkes National Primate Research Center lasted all of two minutes. Happily, we can expand upon that in a forum like this one. Here are longer extracts from the interviews we conducted with teacher Christy Hodges; students Clea, Janice, and Shamaal; and Yerkes primate lab director Stuart Zola, about the work they did this summer.

GIFT is a program that places teachers and students into "real world" research and corporate settings. Applications for the GIFT program will be available online at the GIFT website on January 15, 2009.

Christy Hodges - Environmental and Earth Systems Science Teacher, Middle Grove High School, DeKalb County

This summer I am facilitating a group of students who are working in the research lab at Yerkes Research Institute on the Emory campus. My students are involved in a behavioral study, where they are scoring the behavior of monkeys using what's called "integral focal sampling" (I hope I got that correct!).

The monkeys were used in memory testing. The lab we're with studies Alzheimer's with human patients. They use the monkeys to understand how memory works.

The study that my students are doing is a spin-off. The monkeys that we're scoring are used in the memory studies. However they're not participating like they should. My lab wants to know if early childhood trauma, such as having the mother taken away from the infant monkey, is causing this behavior.

Clea - Student

So say if their mother was taken away about an hour, maybe two weeks from them, how did they react to that? That also helps with children nowadays. Say if they lost their parents early, how are they going to act now and in the future?

Christy

We're doing a blind study. My students don't know which monkeys are the ones that won't participate correctly and which ones are just the control monkeys; the ones that participate normally. At the end of our summer research we will find out which monkeys were the ones that are in question. The students sit in front of a computer to watch video tape sessions with the monkeys. They have to write down what the monkey is doing every minute for a thirty minute session.

Janine - Student

Usually they're just sitting there, which is like "stationary alert"--like a person who's watching TV is just sitting there watching. So they sit there and they watch the other monkeys that are surrounding them.

Christy

One of the most important things I think I can take back is the process of research and the process of scientific study. Students need to know how research is done on the college level. They need to know how research is done on the professional level. My students were introduced to scientific studies and papers as part of their background knowledge. It dawned on me that we need to do that in the classroom. We need to introduce some of those upper-level papers and make the kids go through them and make them look up the terminology. And we need to use more of that terminology, like "focal sampling."

Working with the GIFT program I have made so many contacts. Working with my first lab I was able to contact my sponsor there and get a few materials to help out in the classroom, some extra latex gloves. She sterilized and made gel plates for my classes. I wouldn't have been able to have that that year if it wasn't for my sponsor then. That type of thing, being able to get your hands on materials is really helpful, and being able to make contacts in the research world is really helpful. I've had sponsors come in from Georgia Tech, from their department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. I've had people come in to talk about hurricanes, come in and talk about global warming, talk about their current research studies. So that's been one of the best things, just having those contacts. Without working with GIFT I wouldn't have been able to meet those people. Just sticking in the classroom you don't really get out and meet people in research and in science and that aspect.

Clea

During the tour today we got to see chimpanzees, capuchins, the rhesus monkeys--some of the rhesus monkeys that we actually record their behavior for were actually in there, I think. The research that they do here is very helpful to humans; finding out how we can detect Alzheimer's disease early using the kind of monkeys that they have here.

Shamaal - Student

Recently I thought that my favorite monkey was the rhesus monkey, since we have been recording resus monkeys. But my favorite monkeys from now on are the capuchins, because they're so adorable and pretty and they're so nice.

Clea

Our data will actually be used and maybe our names will even be published when they actually do it.

Shamaal

This summer I wanted to do something science-related because when I grow up I want to major in chemistry or biochemistry. This will benefit me throughout my life.

Stuart Zola - Director of Yerkes Primate Research Center

It has been a great fortune of ours to host the GIFT program here and to begin to develop it. This is our first year in the program. We've had a wonderful teacher, Christy, with us, and three really terrific students who have worked with us.

GIFT is really a terrific idea, first of all because we believe and hope that we are actually able to catalyze in some students' minds the idea of what being a scientist is.

Additionally, it's great just to see how students are these days, and to know when you meet them and talk with them that we're actually in pretty good shape. The notion is that we are going to be helping generate the next generation of scientists who will solve some of the great health problems of our world, so [GIFT] provides us that opportunity.

The next generation is pretty cool, and I think we're going to have a good world ahead of us if we're in the hands of people like Christy and these students!

	Christy Hodges - Environmental and Earth Systems Science Teacher, Middle Grove High School, DeKalb County This summer I am facilitating a group of students who are working in the research lab at Yerkes Research Institute on the Emory campus. My students are involved in a behavioral study, where they are scoring the behavior of monkeys using what's called "integral focal sampling" (I hope I got that correct!). The monkeys were used in memory testing. The lab we're with studies Alzheimer's with human patients. They use the monkeys to understand how memory works. The study that my students are doing is a spin-off. The monkeys that we're scoring are used in the memory studies. However they're not participating like they should. My lab wants to know if early childhood trauma, such as having the mother taken away from the infant monkey, is causing this behavior.
	Clea - Student So say if their mother was taken away about an hour, maybe two weeks from them, how did they react to that? That also helps with children nowadays. Say if they lost their parents early, how are they going to act now and in the future?
	Christy We're doing a blind study. My students don't know which monkeys are the ones that won't participate correctly and which ones are just the control monkeys; the ones that participate normally. At the end of our summer research we will find out which monkeys were the ones that are in question. The students sit in front of a computer to watch video tape sessions with the monkeys. They have to write down what the monkey is doing every minute for a thirty minute session.
	Janine - Student Usually they're just sitting there, which is like "stationary alert"--like a person who's watching TV is just sitting there watching. So they sit there and they watch the other monkeys that are surrounding them.
	Christy One of the most important things I think I can take back is the process of research and the process of scientific study. Students need to know how research is done on the college level. They need to know how research is done on the professional level. My students were introduced to scientific studies and papers as part of their background knowledge. It dawned on me that we need to do that in the classroom. We need to introduce some of those upper-level papers and make the kids go through them and make them look up the terminology. And we need to use more of that terminology, like "focal sampling." Working with the GIFT program I have made so many contacts. Working with my first lab I was able to contact my sponsor there and get a few materials to help out in the classroom, some extra latex gloves. She sterilized and made gel plates for my classes. I wouldn't have been able to have that that year if it wasn't for my sponsor then. That type of thing, being able to get your hands on materials is really helpful, and being able to make contacts in the research world is really helpful. I've had sponsors come in from Georgia Tech, from their department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. I've had people come in to talk about hurricanes, come in and talk about global warming, talk about their current research studies. So that's been one of the best things, just having those contacts. Without working with GIFT I wouldn't have been able to meet those people. Just sticking in the classroom you don't really get out and meet people in research and in science and that aspect.
	Clea During the tour today we got to see chimpanzees, capuchins, the rhesus monkeys--some of the rhesus monkeys that we actually record their behavior for were actually in there, I think. The research that they do here is very helpful to humans; finding out how we can detect Alzheimer's disease early using the kind of monkeys that they have here.
	Shamaal - Student Recently I thought that my favorite monkey was the rhesus monkey, since we have been recording resus monkeys. But my favorite monkeys from now on are the capuchins, because they're so adorable and pretty and they're so nice.
	Clea Our data will actually be used and maybe our names will even be published when they actually do it.
	Shamaal This summer I wanted to do something science-related because when I grow up I want to major in chemistry or biochemistry. This will benefit me throughout my life.
	Stuart Zola - Director of Yerkes Primate Research Center It has been a great fortune of ours to host the GIFT program here and to begin to develop it. This is our first year in the program. We've had a wonderful teacher, Christy, with us, and three really terrific students who have worked with us. GIFT is really a terrific idea, first of all because we believe and hope that we are actually able to catalyze in some students' minds the idea of what being a scientist is. Additionally, it's great just to see how students are these days, and to know when you meet them and talk with them that we're actually in pretty good shape. The notion is that we are going to be helping generate the next generation of scientists who will solve some of the great health problems of our world, so [GIFT] provides us that opportunity. The next generation is pretty cool, and I think we're going to have a good world ahead of us if we're in the hands of people like Christy and these students!