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The most extensive program at Florida State University to prepare STEM graduate students to make meaningful contributions to the educational mission of the scientific community arises from its NSF-funded Graduate Students in K-12 Education (GK-12) project. This training program was developed by the Office of Science Teaching Activities in the College of Arts and Sciences, an entity established twenty years ago to provide leadership in science and mathematics education. Training consists of a four-credit course for STEM graduate students to facilitate the use of their scientific expertise in teaching. It is grounded in the National Science Education Standards (1996) and engages students in activities demonstrating the process of science learning and reflection upon what this process means for science teaching. It provides the opportunity for graduate students to examine and analyze a variety of best practices in science teaching, and informs them about some high-quality instructional materials for teaching science at the same time. Its central theme is communicating science; topics introduced include human development and how students learn, how this learning is affected by various factors, and how to use this knowledge about cognition effectively in the science classroom. Each topic is taught by experts in the field. After the course, formal instruction in science teaching-and-learning is continued through monthly study of important documents from the field of science teaching and learning assigned for journal-club discussion. Ongoing evaluation of this project indicates that this training is a powerful tool for preparing STEM graduate students to meet the challenges of science teaching.