The PMI Science Curriculum  Support Project (SCSP)

In the PMI Science Curriculum  Support Project we are directly supporting the very exciting new curricula being introduced or piloted in our local school districts with the support of LASER.   We do this both by supporting teams of local teachers and by creating materials for a web site in support of inquiry-based science curriculum units.  This site will, in turn, be linked to and form part of the support site of E=mc2, a coalition of three local districts and the Invention Factory Science Center.

SCSP will form a foundation for continuing teacher/scientist interaction over the long term, as opposed to single workshops.  It presents a novel, groundbreaking, and vigorous vision of university/school interaction, one in which we at Princeton  take great pride.

This project results from discussions with faculty and with our Working Group of Science Supervisors and Princeton outreach staff that has met monthly.   A K-12 Science Education Workshop for PMI scientists in January 1999 introduced the ideas of inquiry-based science to our faculty and staff.

THE SCSP PROJECT
1. PMI members (faculty and staff) select a kit from among the list of kits currently being used or piloted in our area schools.  Some faculty have recruited their students or postdocs to work with them.

2.  We purchase the teacher's manual for each selected kit, and the kits themselves are rented for preview.

3. With the help of the Science Supervisors' Working Group, teams of teachers who are or will be using these kits in their classrooms are selected to work on each kit.

4. The team of teachers and scientist(s) together decide what contribution they will choose to focus on. These may include:

• Discussions or seminars about science content;
• Writing a "primer" about the underlying science;
• Suggesting and helping to design extensions - projects or activities that can be done during the two-week periods when the kits are being recycled;
• Suggesting additional readings or web sites for both teachers and students
• Making oneself available to answer questions via email; and others.

These activities are carried out through a combination of meetings among teachers and scientists, phone, and email, at the discretion of each group.  An essential component is the visits by scientists to the teachers' classrooms, both to observe and to participate.

Last modified September 29, 2000