Building an Infrastructure for Research Collaborations

描述（由申请人提供）：植物研究和教育伙伴关系（PREP）的建立是为了促进高中生物学生，他们的老师和科学家之间的研究合作。科学家提供野生型（所有功能基因）和突变型（有一个残疾基因）拟南芥植物的种子，教师和学生设计和进行调查，以帮助阐明残疾基因的功能。迄今为止，PREP已在65多名教师和30多名科学家之间建立了多年的互利研究合作，涉及12，000多名学生进行科学发现。PREP还提高了学生对遗传学，植物生物学和科学探究的知识。然而，PREP在吸引农村学校和普通班（与荣誉或高级班相比）的学生方面面临着挑战，并确保学生在参与科学研究时培养科学推理技能。在这里，我们建议开发PREP的新的和创造性的组成部分，使该国农村地区的学生和教师能够与地理上遥远的科学家合作进行研究，吸引那些参加普通生物学课程并被认为是“平均或低成就者”的学生体验科学发现的兴奋，增强学生在整个调查过程中推理的复杂性，发展教师和科学家在学生合作研究时指导学生的能力，并确定这些活动是否以及如何影响（1）学生对科学的知识、态度和信念及其科学推理技能，以及（2）教师和科学家指导学生进行科学调查的能力。 我们建议通过建立PREP现有的基础设施来实现这些目标：参与教师和科学家的网络，项目网站以及我们的研究和评估结果。具体来说，我们将开发和形成性评估（第一阶段）和传播总结性评估（第二阶段）：（1）新的Pre-PREP和研究推理课程，（2）教师和科学家的新的专业发展经验，形式是让学生参与科学调查课程和导师教师计划，以及（3）以虚拟互动和一名教师与一名科学家的密集合作为形式的新合作战略。我们预计将有足够数量的学生参与进行准实验研究，以确定不同项目组成部分的影响（即，课程和合作战略），并确定当它们结合起来时是否有协同作用。 公共卫生相关性（申请人提供）：建立研究合作的基础设施将建立在植物研究和教育伙伴关系（PREP）的现有基础设施上，让成绩较低的高中生参与设计和进行生物医学界感兴趣的未知结果的新实验，确保学生在科学发现中学习生物学概念和科学推理技能，并建设全国教师和科学家指导学生进行科学调查的能力。通过这些活动，学生将不仅在他们的科学知识增长，而且在他们的科学作为思维方式和作为一个领域，他们可以做出有意义的贡献的意识。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Partnership for Research and Education in Plants (PREP) was established to foster research collaborations among high school biology students, their teachers, and scientists. Scientists provide seeds from wild-type (with all functional genes) and mutant (with a disabled gene) Arabidopsis thaliana plants, and teachers and students design and conduct investigations to help elucidate the function of the disabled gene. To date, PREP has established multi-year, mutually beneficial research collaborations between more than 65 teachers and 30 scientists, involving more than 12,000 students in making scientific discoveries. PREP has also enhanced student knowledge about genetics, plant biology, and scientific inquiry. Yet, PREP has faced challenges in engaging students in rural schools and general classes (vs. honors or advanced classes), and in ensuring that students develop scientific reasoning skills as they participate in doing science. Here we propose to develop new and creative components of PREP that enable students and teachers in rural areas of the country to collaborate in research with geographically distant scientists, engage students who are enrolled in general biology classes and considered to be "average or low achievers" to experience the excitement of scientific discovery, enhance the complexity of students' reasoning throughout their investigations, develop the capacity of teachers and scientists to mentor students as they collaborate in research, and determine whether and how these activities affect (1) students' knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about science and their scientific reasoning skills, and (2) teachers' and scientists' abilities to mentor students in scientific investigation. We propose to accomplish these aims by building on PREP's current infrastructure: the network of participating teachers and scientists, project web site, and findings from our research and evaluation. Specifically, we will develop and formatively evaluate (Phase I) and disseminate summatively evaluate (Phase II): (1) new Pre-PREP and Reasoning in Research curricula, (2) new professional development experiences for teachers and scientists in the form of an Engaging Students in Scientific Investigation course and a Mentor Teacher Program, and (3) new collaboration strategies in the form of virtual interactions and intensive one teacher - one scientist partnerships. We anticipate involving sufficient numbers of students to conduct quasi-experimental studies to determine the impacts of different project components (i.e., curricula and collaboration strategies) and determine if there is synergy when they are combined. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE (provided by applicant): Building an Infrastructure for Research Collaborations will build on the existing infrastructure of the Partnership for Research and Education in Plants (PREP) to engage lower achieving high school students in designing and conducting novel experiments with unknown outcomes that are of interest to the biomedical community, ensure students learn biology concepts and scientific reasoning skills as they make scientific discoveries, and build the capacity of teachers and scientists across the country to mentor students in scientific investigation. Through these activities, students will not only grow in their science knowledge, but also in their awareness of science as way of thinking and as a field where they can make meaningful contributions.