Empowering Pre-service Teachers and Students With Environmental Health Research

 描述(由申请者提供)：联邦STEM战略计划旨在到2020年培养100,000名优秀的K-12 STEM新教师，并大幅增加每年在高中毕业前拥有真正STEM体验的美国青年人数。国家卫生研究院制定了补充目标，以(I)加强劳动力发展(教育)，以促进生物医学、行为和临床研究；(Ii)增加研究界的多样性；以及(Iii)增加普通民众对与健康有关的研究的了解。拟议的国家环保总局项目在下一代科学标准的背景下解决了这些目标。它的一整套活动旨在使职前教师做好准备，将有指导的探究/研究和研究交流融入高中生命科学课程，并与与学生相关的社会环境健康问题相结合。通过研讨会和其他活动，职前教师将获得与环境健康科学家的研究经验，并学习几个充分开发的实验模块的内容，这些模块利用活生物体作为生物医学模型。这些单元让学生调查环境/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。研究也必须被传达。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。为了给职前教师和他们的学生提供这一严格的课程，所有信息技术组成部分都得到了国家环保总局团队的大力支持，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，因为国家环保总局的团队包括知识渊博、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向职前教师和学生提供科学、环境健康调查计划的目标：(1)准备100名职前教师，在暑期工作坊的背景下，使用特殊的实验模块引导学生在科学过程(从实验到交流)中进行指导探究，与团队科学家进行为期一年的工作，并在大师教师导师的指导下进行教学。(2)为职前教师提供环境健康研究背景知识。(3)对职前教师和课堂给予常年支持，以实施该计划。(4)通过实验模块、在线资源、研究论文和海报、学生研究大会等方式，向5000名高中生介绍科研和交流。(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不足的学生人口上。(6)对方案进行全面评价，包括对照组法。

 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.