Interdisciplinary RET

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This award is for an expanded, stand-alone Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program through the Departments of Geosciences and Physics at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. The major goal of the proposed RET program is to seek ways of providing enrichment and support for in-service science teachers. Up to 8 RET interns (including a Teacher-mentor) will be recruited from SE Wisconsin, which contains the main urban and population centers and the state's principal "inner city" school district, Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). Recruitment is limited to qualified, in-service science teachers in high schools or, exceptionally, middle schools. Recruitment will begin in late February for the three phases of (1) Pre-program activities (2) Main program activities, beginning in June and lasting 6-8 weeks, during which the interns will work full time at UWM or a distant site with their faculty mentors and enroll in two of four courses specifically designed for high school science educators (3) Implementation and assessment activities in the Fall at both UWM and the intern's classrooms. Teacher - interns will be expected to broaden and deepen their knowledge of geosciences and physics, increase their science literacy, reconsider how they teach the traditional geoscience and physics curricula, and use their experience in the Geoscience and/or Physics departments to develop an original teaching project suitable for high school. A comprehensive range of projects is available, and an emphasis has been placed on interdisciplinary work which will involve mentoring by faculty from both departments. Specific areas of study, development, and research participation for RET interns may include gravitational wave detection and microgravity, high temperature superconductivity, environmental issues connected with water resources and water pollution, nanotechnology, biophysics, medical imagining, structural geology in Precambrian rocks, Lake Michigan shoreline processes and deposits, paleoenvironment studies in Montana, and petrology of recent lava flows. The program includes the implementation and dissemination of the teaching projects developed by the interns through presentation(s) at a professional meeting such as the Wisconsin Society for Science Teachers Convention and in-service opportunities. This RET site is supported by the Division of Physics and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate.