Authentic Research Experiences for Nevada High School Teachers and Students

AbstractThe Nevada Science Teacher Enhancement Project (N-STEP) was a three-year Teacher Enhancement program funded by the National Science Foundation. Fifty high school teachers worked closely with research scientists, education faculty, and 74 high school students on authentic field-based research projects in geosciences, biological sciences or social sciences. Major program goals were to increase teachers understanding of authentic scientific research, improve teachers content knowledge, foster closer professional collaboration between high school teachers and research scientists, and help teachers better incorporate research into classroom teaching. Increased involvement of high school students in authentic research was another goal of N-STEP. Scientists involved in the project generally found data collected to be high quality and suitable for inclusion in their research. Annual formative evaluation of the program led to improved satisfaction of teachers and students with their experiences. Results of two quantitative instruments found no statistically significant changes in participant understanding of the nature of science as a result of their experiences.Keywordsearth science - teacher educationeducation-scienceeducation - pre-college