RET: Shaping Inquiry from Feedstock to Tailpipe (SHIFT)

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"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)." This award provides funding for a 3 year standard award to support a Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in Engineering Site program at the University of Kansas (KU) entitled, "RET: Shaping Inquiry from Feedstock to Tailpipe (SHIFT)", under the direction of Dr. Susan M. Stagg-Williams. This program hosted by the University of Kansas and the Southeast Kansas Education Service Center-Greenbush will provide a 6 week summer experience for a total of 24 high school science teachers and community college teachers (8 per year for 3 years). The participants will be recruited from both rural and urban school districts and two community colleges throughout the state of Kansas.The primary objectives of the program are to: 1) Provide professional development training and research opportunities to increase participants knowledge base and awareness of research methods; 2) Nurture long-term linkages between KU faculty and the surrounding educational community; 3) Guide the creation of original, standards-based, biofuel-related lessons for dissemination; 4) Engage students in real-world applications to demonstrate that solutions to complex problems often require integration of knowledge from multiple subject areas; and 5) Stimulate students' interest in STEM careers. The teachers will participate in full-time discovery-based research at KU during the summer in four areas of biofuels research that complement the courses they teach. These research areas include: (1) ecosystem processes; (2) feedstock production; (3) biofuel production; and (4) biofuel assessment. This opportunity will help teachers learn about the integrated nature of biofuels research. With guidance from Greenbush educators, participants will translate their research experiences into curricular materials that can be used in their classes the following year. These lessons will be designed to meet state science standards and it is anticipated that at least four lesson modules will be developed each year of the project.