The goal of the workshop is to develop the teachers’ ability to assimilate high-level, scientific, and technological information and procedures, then break it down into teachable chunks suitable for the middle- and high-school students in their classrooms. Pedagogical issues for teaching science methods are addressed by having participants immersed in a problem-based learning (PBL) scenario derived from current marine biotechnology research being conducted at nearby Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, Moss Landing, CA. Going one step further, teachers are challenged with the requirement to transform their new knowledge into a lesson plan that could be realistically taught in their own science curriculum. The lesson plan development process is integrated throughout the first two weeks, overlapping the science and technology topics, and culminating in the lesson implementation in the third week. Participants in the workshop are willing to share their knowledge with their students, who are samples of the underrepresented population in STEM careers. The issue of transfer was a high priority for the workshop to help insure that the teachers’ students would also benefit from learning about current science methods in biotechnology and bioinformatics, as well as careers in information technology.
