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Teacher from Hopkins Spends Summer in TWIST

Melanie Bristor glimpsed a different side of science during her summer break.

Editor’s Note: The following article was written in part with information provided by St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.

While many of the high school students she teaches were on vacation, Hopkins resident and Coon Rapids High School science teacher Melanie Bristor spent six weeks of her own summer break working 40 hours a week at a 3M laboratory, collaborating with company researchers through the Maplewood-company’s Teachers Working in Science and Technology (TWIST) program.

The program allowed Bristor to earn graduate credits through a Saint Mary’s University continuing education program while also advancing her understanding of the ways science and industry work together.

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Providing middle school and high school teachers with the opportunity to work alongside 3M scientists and engineers, the TWIST program placed Bristor in the company’s occupational health and environmental safety division, where she worked on respirators. Beyond that, Bristor said she wasn’t free to comment on her work with 3M this summer due to potential disclosure of trade secrets—a real change of pace from what she’s used to.

 “All my experience in science is at a university, where everything is about sharing everything,” she said. “It was really enlightening to be on the industry side, where there are certain things you can say and certain things you can’t.”

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Concerns about trade secrets aside, Bristor immediately saw how her work with the TWIST program would help her be a better teacher when school started back up.   

“When I’m talking to my students about what scientists do, I’m leaving out the industry side of science because I don’t know that much about it,” she said. “Now I do.”

At the end of the six weeks, Bristor and the 30 other teachers who were enrolled in the program presented the work they'd been doing at 3M. Though focused on the progress their research had made over the summer, their presentations also touched on ways their experience could be translated into the classroom.

"Just the experience of being part of the scientific community for a while gave me an important perspective on skills like data analysis and how you design a good experiment," Bristor said. "Those are really the main things that students need to take away—they really need to have those strong background skills."

While advancing Bristor’s research skills and preparing her to bring real-world science experience back to students, she said the program also had a salutary effect which had her looking forward to this September.

"(TWIST) rejuvenated me and got me excited about going back to the classroom," she said. "It gave me a new sense of purpose in my job."

 

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