Empowering Pre-service Teachers and Students With Environmental Health Research

 描述（由申请人提供）：联邦CoSTEM战略计划的目标是到2020年准备10万名优秀的新K-12 STEM教师，并大大增加美国青年的数量。国立卫生研究院提出了补充目标，以（一）加强劳动力发展（教育），促进生物医学、行为和临床研究;（二）增加研究界的多样性;（三）增加公众对健康相关研究的理解。拟议的SEPA项目在下一代科学标准的背景下解决了这些目标。它的一套综合活动旨在使职前教师做好准备，将有指导的调查/研究和研究交流融入高中生命科学课程，并与学生相关的社会环境健康问题相结合。使用讲习班和其他活动，职前教师将获得与环境卫生科学家的研究经验，并学习几个充分开发的实验模块的内容，利用活生物体作为生物医学模型。这些模块让学生参与调查环境/生活方式化学品对基本生物过程的影响。然后，职前教师将与大师级教师配对，在他们的学生教学经验中实施这些模块，特别强调在密尔沃基公立学校系统和其他有许多弱势学生的地区工作。研究也需要沟通。因此，这些模块将科学过程扩展到与同行的非正式讨论，文献，撰写和审查科学论文，制作研究海报以及参加学生科学会议。为了向职前教师和学生提供这一严格的计划，SEPA团队大力支持所有IT组件，包括应对实验室研究进入课堂时不可避免地出现的各种问题。这是可以做到的，因为SEPA团队包括知识渊博、经验丰富的科学家和科学教育工作者。以下具体目标总结了为职前教师和学生提供科学，环境健康调查计划的目标：（1）培训100名职前教师，带领学生在科学过程中进行引导探究（从实验到交流）在夏季研讨会的背景下使用特殊的实验模块，与团队科学家一起工作一年，并与大师导师一起实践教学。(2)为职前教师提供环境卫生研究背景知识。(3)为职前教师和教室提供全年支持，以实施该计划。(4)通过实验模块、在线资源、研究论文和海报以及学生研究会议，向5，000名高中生介绍科学研究和交流。(5)将该计划的重点放在密尔沃基公立学校系统及其庞大的弱势和代表性不足的学生群体上。(6)全面评估该计划，包括比较组方法。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Federal CoSTEM Strategic Plan aims to prepare 100,000 excellent new K-12 STEM teachers by 2020 and to greatly increase the number of U.S. youth who have an authentic STEM experience each year prior to completing high school. The National Institutes of Health set forth complementary goals to (i) enhance workforce development (education) that stimulates biomedical, behavioral and clinical research; (ii) increase diversity of the research community; and (iii) increase understanding of health related research by the general population. The proposed SEPA project addresses these objectives within the context of the Next Generation Science Standards. Its integrated set of activities is designed to prepare pre-service teachers to infuse guided inquiry/research and research communication into high school life science courses and are coupled to societal environmental health issues of relevance to students. Using workshops and other activities, pre-service teachers will gain research experience with environmental health scientists and learn the content of several fully developed experiment modules that utilize live organisms as biomedical models. The modules engage students in the investigation of impacts of environmental/life-style chemicals on fundamental biological processes. Then, the pre-service teachers will be paired with master teachers to implement the modules during their student teaching experiences with specific emphasis on working within the Milwaukee Public School System and other districts with many disadvantaged students. Research must also be communicated. Thus, the modules extend the scientific process to informal discussion with peers, the literature, writing and reviewing scientific papers, making research posters, and attending a student scientific conference. In order to offer pre-service teachers and their students this rigorous program, all it components are strongly supported by the SEPA team, including responding to the variety of issues that inevitably arise as laboratory research enters the classroom. This can be done because the SEPA team includes knowledgeable and experienced scientists and science educators. The following specific aims summarize the goals in delivering this program of scientific, environmental health inquiry to pre-service teachers and students: (1) To prepare 100 pre-service teachers to lead students in guided inquiry across the scientific process (experimentation to communication) using special experiment modules in the context of a summer workshop, year-long work with team scientists, and practice teaching with master teacher mentors. (2) To provide pre-service teachers with environmental health research background knowledge. (3) To give pre-service teachers and classrooms year-round support to implement the program. (4) To introduce 5,000 high school students to scientific research and communication through experiment modules, on-line resources, research papers and posters, and a Student Research Conference. (5) To focus the program on the Milwaukee Public School System and its large disadvantaged and underrepresented student population. (6) To evaluate the program fully including a comparison group method.