"I am going to train a crab to ring a bell," said a determined Lily Strassberg this summer at a four-credit Marine Environmental Science course at Shoals Marine Laboratory, Cornell's marine field station.

And indeed she did.

The course immersed high school juniors and seniors like Strassberg, a junior at Newton (Massachusetts) South High School, in marine environmental issues and introduced them to scientific study.

"High school students usually have experiments handed to them -- and sometimes even the results," said Ithaca High School teacher Mark Johnson, the course instructor. "Real science is not about whether experiments go the way you want them to."

Strassberg found inspiration for her crab experiment in "Reaching the Animal Mind," by animal trainer and scientist Karen Pryor '54. In the first chapter, Pryor recounts training her son's hermit crab. When she had to define her own research project, Strassberg turned Pryor's experience into research backed by empirical data.

First, her instructor had to approve the project, and Johnson hesitated. An experiment based on a one-page anecdotal account seemed flimsy at best. But the project was too interesting for him to say no.

"Any ideas, however outside the box, are worth pursuing," Johnson said.

And even though she had approval for the experiment, Strassberg faced skepticism on all fronts. "My classmates said they felt bad for me, that I was crazy, that it couldn't be done," Strassberg said. She started carrying Pryor's book with her. "Time and time again I pulled the book out, passed it around … teachers and classmates alike were skeptical."

Strassberg put her two test subjects, Carcinus maenas, the local green crab, to the test. She used a marked tank with a "bell" (a sinker tied to a stick) at one end and the word "start" at the other. She placed a crab on the "start" line. When the crab walked toward the bell, Strassberg gave it mussel meat, its natural food. Strassberg rewarded the crab as it came closer to the bell, and finally when it deliberately touched the bell with its claw.

After only three days and 10 minutes of training time, Strassberg's crabs tolled her bells.

When Strassberg presented her findings, her classmates gave her a standing ovation. According to Johnson, students and faculty alike were blown away by her results. "I could have taken the easy way out," Strassberg recalled about her experience. "Instead, I carried out a potentially crash-and-burn theory." She also learned important lessons about scientific study. "I learned that science is more than what you read in the textbook -- that we simply don't know things, and that asking questions in the first place is the only way to find answers."

A week later, Strassberg was conversing with a visiting member of the Cornell Club of Boston, only to discover that she was talking to her idol -- Karen Pryor.

"There were over a hundred people in the dining hall. What are the chances that she would sit next to me?" Strassberg said. "Meeting her was over-the-top mind-blowing."

"I was very, very touched," Pryor said of their meeting. "I was excited the book inspired her."

Strassberg's studies at Shoals Marine Lab, and her chance meeting with Pryor, helped her realize "that true learning and true science is only achieved by asking questions, questions that you have to ask because the answers aren't already in the textbooks. I also realized that I could ask and answer those questions."

Shelley Stuart '91 is a freelance science writer.