But 24 teens leaped at the chance to do something different by participating in a three-week, summer course in pharmacology sponsored by Duke to excite students about science.

How different? Their fun activities included examining brain slices of rats and testing how rats negotiate mazes to learn more about how the hippocampus in the brain aids learning and memory; and looking for mutations in bacteria to determine if there is a difference between the affects of low tar, low nicotine cigarettes compared to regular cigarettes.

It was all part of the inaugural year of LEAP (Launch into Education About Pharmacology), a science enrichment program for 10th and 11th graders, especially those underrepresented in science, in Durham, Orange, Wake, Person, Chatham and Alamance counties.

“It was a great experience,” says Tony Ray Godwin Jr., a rising junior at Person High School in Roxboro who wants to be a chemist. “The course teaches you more in three weeks than you learn during a semester at school. It’s really comprehensive and shows that learning is actually fun.”

Duke University’s RISE (Raising Interest in Science Education) office in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology received a Student Science Enrichment Award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund last year to develop and implement LEAP.

“The goal of the course is to provide students with a context that excites them about science, instills science literacy and inspires them to consider careers in science,” says Rochelle Schwartz-Bloom, Ph.D., a Duke professor of pharmacology who directs the program.

The course includes lectures, inquiry-based experiments, field trips, multi-media and writing. During the following year, students will meet with Duke faculty and design a research project addressing pharmacology concepts or a controversial issue in pharmacology that is in the news. Students also will present their research projects at the N.C. Student Academy of Sciences annual meeting and will compete to attend the N.C. Regional Science Fair.

For more information about LEAP, visit www.rise.duke.edu/leap/, or contact Suzanne Sikes, Ph.D., at 919-684-5183 or at sikes005@mc.duke.edu.