First the dream team was assembled; then the project was funded.
That analysis may be simplistic, but it does summarize how an interdisciplinary partnership of scientists and educators from WSU’s Vancouver campus and the surrounding public school system recently received a $2.7 million, five-year grant.
They will create a program for graduate teaching fellows in K-12 education (GK-12) in southwestern Washington, said project director Gretchen Rollwagen-Bollens.
Partnership the key
Scientists and teachers
“I wrote my dissertation on GK-12 partnership projects and have seen how exciting these partnerships can be for the teachers, graduate student fellows and students involved,” Nelson said.
“The mix of skills and perspectives on the GK-12 team is vital to the success of the partnerships,” she said. “It is essential for the project PI’s to support the teacher-fellow partnerships from both the perspective of a scientist and a teacher. We put together a very representative team, and I think that will help this program to be very successful.”
Rollwagen-Bollens echoed that enthusiasm.
“This award recognizes the strength of our graduate program and will provide a valuable experience for our graduate students,” she said. This is an incredibly powerful model to improve the way students are educated about science.”