Description of the Program

With funding from the National Science Foundation, this program places graduate teaching fellows (GK12 Fellows) and upper division undergraduates from physics and chemistry into area public schools as STEM content resources and technology experts. During the K-12 school year, GK12 Fellows develop and integrate established STEM activities and assist with their instruction in the classroom. GK12 Fellows also support K-12 Teachers with STEM content underpinnings.

As classroom STEM specialists, they improve their communication skills, enhance their content knowledge and develop their teaching skills. This program also prepares fellows for careers that encourage or require community outreach. In addition to the eight hours a week in schools, fellows have a weekly group session where they share successes and ideas as well as talk through challenges that arise during their in-class experiences.
This is the first year of our program, and we have concentrated our efforts in seven K-5 schools in our county. The schools are a mix of rural and urban settings, providing different teaching challenges to our graduate fellows. Following with national trends to promote hands-on, inquiry based science instruction, our program supports the use of commercially available science kits (a contained unit with experimental equipment for students to work in small groups and teacher guided lessons). Lane ESD, in partnership with Eugene 4J school district, adopted a science kit curriculum for its schools and established a refurbishment system to restock used kits. The kits are organized into three categories, Earth, Life and Physical Science, one for each grade. With their guidance, we adopted the same kits and are able to contract with their refurbishment system. Our focus is to provide assistance with the physical science kits (subjects include magnets and motors, changes of state, electric circuits, etc) because these kits were less used than the Life and Earth Science kits.

GK12 Program Objectives:
• Increase student knowledge and appreciation of math and physical science.
• Provide fellows experience in delivering science and math education.
• Increase student achievement.
• Enhance teachers' knowledge of physical science and mathematics content.
• Provide assistance with Oregon’s requirement for "scientific inquiry work samples."
• Enhance science teaching using science kit-based instruction.
• Improve fellows' communication skills, enhance content knowledge and develop teaching skills.
• Prepare fellows for careers that encourage or require community outreach.
• Increase adoption of kit-based science curricula.

In-school Activities for Fellows:
• Provide K-5 teacher workshops on content underpinnings.
• Serve as content resource specialists and assist with their instruction.
• Serve as a science specialist and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) coordinator for assigned school.
• Provide demonstrations and other content resources to teachers and students.
• Help teachers with "scientific-inquiry" based work samples developed from kit materials.
• Be a scientist in the classroom and, thus, model how a scientist looks at the world.
• Develop activities (puzzles, challenges, etc.) that integrate both math and science skills.
•Mentor students in science fair project development.7

Outcomes of the Program

The academic year 2003-04 marks our inaugural year of this NSF supported program. We have eleven graduate students and one undergraduate student engaged in activities in seven elementary schools within Lane County, Oregon. There are six chemistry graduate students; five physics graduate students and one physics undergraduate. The graduate student fellows are in various stages of their graduate career, all are in their second year or beyond. Some are still taking classes while others are dedicated to research and this outreach program.
We are accumulating a library of instructional aids and demonstration equipment to supplement the science kit curriculum. In addition, we are adapting the curriculum to help educators meet the state of Oregon requirements for submitting student work samples.
We are in the beginning stages of our outreach activities, and our findings are largely anecdotal. While we see enthusiasm on the part of the K12 students and appreciation on the part of the K12 teachers, our most significant results are being seen in the fellows. Because they are the “science-experts”, they have had to adjust the way they think and talk about science to reach an audience that certainly doesn’t have the theoretical knowledge and may lack relevant practical experience. In our weekly meetings, we increasingly hear discussions where the fellows show their sensitivity to different learning styles as wells as different knowledge systems. We expect to have more definable results at the end of the academic year when we can analyze our program findings with more detail.
While the majority of the Fellows' time is spent in class, working with students, they also spend a good portion of their time working one on one with teachers. In this preparation time, the teacher gets the full attention of the fellows as they go through content area that is unfamiliar territory for the K12 teacher. Information doesn't flow in only one direction during these times. The fellows also get instruction on teaching pedagogy from the K12 teachers. In group discussions, we learned that the fellows feel they have already gained useful insight into the practice (sometimes art) of teaching.

Implementation of the Program

Our program was devised with guidance from representatives of the school districts within Lane County. To help with the planning of our program, we contacted the Science Curriculum Specialist at Lane Educational Services District (ESD). As one of Oregon's 21 ESDs, Lane ESD's goal is to provide the county's 16 school districts with a wide array of educational programs and services. With his help we were able to identify target schools that would benefit the most from our assistance. He facilitated introductions and kept the momentum going with our target schools. He is a valuable resource and continues to guide and serve our program.
The desire to be a resource for STEM education in K12 schools was our impetus to reach out to the schools and pose the simple question, “How can we help?” Their responses shaped the structure and goals of our program. We felt that it was very important to have the schools’ input early in the planning stages so that we created a program that would address the particular needs of area school districts. Without the support of the school districts, the program would have never left “the drawing table”.
The chemistry and physics departments also provide needed support in their willingness to lend instructional aids from their libraries of demonstration equipment. Faculty from both departments have a long history of outreach activities bringing science into the community.

We have a faculty member dedicating .50FTE of her time to the coordination and management of the program. There are an additional four faculty members that assist with and guide the program activities. Their time commitment varies from two to ten hours a week depending on the events for the week.