A Strategy for Sustained Outreach in the Molecular Biosciences

One goal of the NIH SEPA (Science Education Partnership Awards) program is to create partnerships between biomedical researchers and teachers and schools. The MSOE Center for BioMolecular Modeling (CBM) has leveraged the support of a series of SEPA awards to create a multifaceted outreach program that connects biomolecular researchers and their stories of active research with high school teachers and the foundational concepts of chemistry and biology they teach in their classrooms. The enabling technology that supports this outreach program is 3D printing. The CBM has pioneered the use of 3D printing to create physical models of proteins that allow researchers to tell the story of their research project while at the same time engaging teachers and their students as active participants in this process of science.