Birmingham Science Education Partnership: Middle School Inquiry-Based Learning

描述(由申请人提供)： 美国的卫生保健差距部分是由于少数族裔和弱势儿童缺乏早期生物医学/健康科学教育。教育系统的这种失败导致少数群体在生物医学职业发展道路上的代表性不足，卫生知识水平低下，卫生保健负担加重。阿拉巴马大学伯明翰分校(UAB)、伯明翰城市学校(BCS)和麦克韦恩中心结成了有效的联盟，为CORD的SEPA资助的高中项目提供了支持，从而创建了一个自我维持的模式，在这种模式下，所有三个合作伙伴的资源都得到了利用，大大加强了BCS的科学教育。作为这一成功的一个指标，自1999年以来，完成CORD为期3年的高中暑期项目的非裔美国学生中，近100%进入了学院和大学，主要是生物医学学科。每年，这些项目直接接触到大约4000名少数民族学生，并为他们的20名教师提供强化培训。然而，尽管取得了这些成功，BCS的大多数学生在高中之前就对科学教育失去了兴趣。如果有相当数量的学生想要进入生物医学职业生涯，这些学生必须在生命的早期就参与进来，并获得坚实的科学背景。这项建议侧重于一项新的综合计划，通过为学生提供新的机会并极大地加强对教师的科学培训，来加强6-8年级学生以探究为基础的科学教育。这些群体面临的挑战与CORD高中项目面临的挑战截然不同。中学生和教师接受的科学培训比高中同龄人要少得多。拟议计划的主要优势包括：1)将拟议的探究性课堂、课堂和McWane中心课程纳入BCS的核心科学课程；2)将教师培训纳入BCS科学教师的常规在职培训；3)与致力于专业和本科的生物医学学生建立伙伴关系，他们将与教师一起促进基于探究的科学和生物医学健康教育；4)让家长和普通公众参与健康素养教育，提高对NIHH赞助的研究的好处的认识。UAB、BCS和McWane Center之间成熟的合作伙伴关系将对这种基于调查的模式的力量、成本效益和自我可持续性进行测试。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Health care disparities in the United States are due, in part, to a lack of early biomedical/health science education among minority and disadvantaged children. This failure of the education system leads to an under representation of minorities in the pipeline to biomedical careers, poor health literacy and an elevated burden on health care. The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), Birmingham City Schools (BCS)' and McWane Center have forged an effective alliance that has empowered CORD's SEPA-funded high school programs and thus, created a self-sustaining model in which the resources of all three partners have been leveraged to greatly enhance BCS science education. As an index of this success, since 1999 nearly 100% of the African-American students who completed CORD's 3-year high school summer program have advanced into colleges and universities, primarily majoring in biomedical science subjects. Annually, these programs directly reach about 4,000 minority students and provide intense training to > 20 of their teachers. However, despite these successes, a majority of BCS students lose interest in science education prior to high school years. These students must be engaged and given a solid science background earlier in life, if a significant number are to advance into biomedical careers. This proposal focuses on a new integrated program to enhance student inquiry-based science education for grades 6-8 by providing new opportunities for the students and greatly enhancing science training for their teachers. The challenges of these groups are quite different from the ones CORD faced in its high school programs. Middle school students and the teachers have much less science training than their high school counterparts. Major strengths of the proposed program include: 1) incorporation of proposed inquiry-based, in-class and McWane Center sessions into the core science curriculum of BCS, 2) integration of teacher training into the regular in-service training of BCS science teachers, 3) partnership with committed professional and undergraduate biomedical students who with the teachers will facilitate inquiry-based science and biomedical health education and 4) engagement of parents and the general public in health literacy education, awareness of the benefits of NIHsponsored research. The proven partnership of UAB, BCS and McWane Center will provide a test of the power, cost-effectiveness and self-sustainability of this inquiry-based model.