It’s become a staple of reality TV: CEOs spend time undercover as a regular employee, celebrities switch places with average Joes bearing the same name, and housewives take a turn at running each other’s households. The phenomenon of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes seems to be a prevalent cultural theme in 2011, so why not try it in the science lab too?

That’s essentially what Beckman Institute Director Art Kramer wondered a couple of years ago, anyway, along with Institute of Genomic Biology Director Gene Robinson, and Kathleen Holden, Director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) the University of Illinois. And now, it looks like their idea just might take off.

A dozen older adults from the Illinois chapter of OLLI, a national organization, took part in a pilot program called Citizen Scientist that placed them in campus research laboratories. And the reaction to the pilot is that the program is a go for another season.

“To our knowledge no one has a program where citizens actually go into the lab,” Holden said. “At OLLI we are always looking at new ways to intellectually stimulate older adults. We started out with courses that grew into study groups, which have been very popular, there are lunchtime lectures, and we’ve had trips with faculty accompanying OLLI members. So this is really an extension of that whole desire to find new and interesting things to make people’s brains more active.”

Kramer and Robinson are two Illinois faculty members who have been involved with OLLI, and for Kramer the citizen scientist concept dovetails with his work in the area of cognitive aging. But this is no research project. The older adults aren’t being tested for their brain function after exercise or for the effects of social engagement on their cognitive abilities (two areas Kramer and other Beckman researchers investigate); rather they are being trained to work alongside faculty and student researchers doing many of the same tasks they do, including working with older adults in labs like the one Kramer directs.

“I have no doubt that our OLLI members can learn; that is certainly the case, but this gives them something that is challenging and meaningful,” Kramer said. “This isn’t stuffing envelopes in a business or charity; it is actually doing research with human subjects or animals.”

Kramer said the thinking behind starting the Citizen Scientist program is related to his work with older adults and maintaining cognitive health across the lifespan.

“I work with older people so I’m interested in how we can maintain high levels of cognition and brain function among older people,” he said. “One of the ways we know we can do that from the literature is to keep them intellectually stimulated. And what’s more stimulating than trying to learn an area you don’t know about when you are 60- to 70-years-old?”

And, most importantly for this fledgling program, it also dovetails with the mission of OLLI which states that “learning has no age limits. Through a rich array of lifelong learning opportunities, members are inspired to take a fresh look at themselves, their world, and the possibilities that await them.”

What awaited the budding citizen scientists in the labs were everything from clownfish in Beckman researcher Justin Rhodes’ lab to the driving simulator in the Institute’s Illinois Simulator Laboratory. Some also worked with the Neuroscience Program and at the Institute for Genomic Biology. They went through the same types of training, including institutional review board training, that is required of every lab member, and they met right alongside the students and professors in their regular group meetings.

Bringing Citizen Scientists into the Lab

 Kramer and Robinson, who had given talks at the OLLI’s south campus facility in the past, talked over their idea with Holden a couple of years ago and a trial program with two members working in Kramer’s lab was tried.