Building an Infrastructure for Research Collaborations

简介（由申请人提供）：植物研究与教育伙伴关系（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（具有所有功能基因）和突变型（具有一个失能基因）拟南芥植物的种子，教师和学生设计并进行调查，以帮助阐明失能基因的功能。迄今为止，PREP已在超过65名教师和30名科学家之间建立了多年互利的研究合作，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在农村学校和普通班（相对于荣誉班或高级班）吸引学生，以及在确保学生在参与科学研究时培养科学推理技能方面面临着挑战。在这里，我们建议开发新的和创造性的PREP组件，使该国农村地区的学生和教师能够与地理位置遥远的科学家合作进行研究，吸引参加普通生物学课程并被认为是“平均或低成就”的学生体验科学发现的兴奋，提高学生在整个研究过程中的推理复杂性。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)教师和科学家在科学调查中指导学生的能力。

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.