Minority K-12 Initiative for Teachers and Students (MKITS)

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The University of North Texas Health Science Center - Fort Worth (UNTHSC) Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and School of Public Health will implement a NHLBI MKITS program in collaboration with the Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD). Joining in the collaboration is the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, and the North Side Partners Council, a community agency. The MKITS program will target a predominantly Hispanic elementary, middle and high school strand of a pyramid, whose schools have been Adopt-A-School partners with the UNTHSC for over twenty years. UNTHSC faculty and students will provide science education components to school children in grades K-12, with special emphasis on grades 4-11. School children will earn an opportunity to attend summer science boot camps, join junior medic and scientist clubs, and engage in academic year high school preceptorships at the UNTHSC campus. Families will attend bi-lingual family night meetings at the North Side Partners Council facilities, and at the Museum, to join in the learning process about opportunities in the biomedical sciences and about science activities available to their children. Teams of teachers and graduate assistants will attend a week-long TOOLS Course designed to provide new techniques for teaching science, and then join during the academic year to present science experiments in the classroom. Teachers will be encouraged to apply for summer research internships at the UNTHSC, funded through an ongoing State of Texas Biotechnology Research Program. UNTHSC graduate, public health and medical students will conduct weekend academies, serve as tutors and mentors to school children in grades 4-12, judge science fair projects, and discuss career paths available to school children in the biomedical sciences. The program will be evaluated for improvements in standardized test score performance, selection of college preparatory curriculum, and ultimately, college applications and enrollments by both an internal and external evaluator.