SynBERC partners with Industry Initiatives for Science and Mathematics Education (IISME) to provide eight week summer research experiences for teachers at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco. IISME exists to address the critical need for a strong, highly skilled workforce in math, science and technological fields. The IISME Summer Fellowship Program assists SynBERC with recruiting highly trained, highly motivated Bay Area science teachers to participate in our research programs, iGEM teams, and curriculum projects. IISME works with teachers year round to transfer their Summer Fellowship experience back to their students and colleagues. The program focuses on teachers as the primary agents for effecting meaningful change in mathematics and science education.

Features of the RET program:

• Teachers complete an eight-week Fellowship, working 8 hours per day, 40 hours per week with SynBERC investigators and postdocs.
  
• Each teacher is assigned a mentor (usually a postdoctoral researcher) who works with the teacher to develop a work plan for the summer.
  
• During the summer and continuing on during the school year, teachers participate in the following IISME events: IISME Orientation, Midsummer, End-of-Summer Celebration, one-on-one Peer Coach sessions, and community group meetings.
  
• Teachers are required to design and implement an Education Transfer Plan (ETP) for applying the summer experience during the academic year.
  
• Teachers participate in academic-year follow-up programs organized by IISME.
  
• SynBERC encourages teachers to participate in our RET program for at least two consecutive years.

Summer 2008 RETs at SynBERC

High School Biotech Training Program - Two high school teachers will participate as instructors and curriculum developers of this new program targeted to high school sophomores and juniors. The teachers will work alongside of postdoctoral researchers in the Keasling lab to teach basic techniques in microbiology, biochemistry and molecular biology, as they pertain to the project. Teachers will supervise 5-6 students in the isolation of bacteria from the environment, based on their physiology. Teachers will: 1) help structure lectures and experiments to correlate to the background and abilities of high school students; 2) design lectures and material to familiarize students with college requirements and application procedures; 3) participate in daily wrap up and planning sessions with the students and scientists 4) provide ad hoc advice on improving the program as it develops. This advice should be directed at improving the experience for both the students and teachers; 5) provide a written report of their summer experience including a summary the research and a critical assessment of the program as a whole.

iGEM - Two high school teachers will participate as teaching assistants for the UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco iGEM teams. Teacher duties and Educational Transfer Plans will be developed during the spring 2008.