It also funds quarterly conferences at which teachers and their mentors from all six institutions will discuss their experiences and share their plans to incorporate their insights into their teaching. In the midst of giving the information, I am trying to convey how that information was obtained, and tell about related questions that remain unanswered today. Every year, each institution will select three new teachers in the chemical sciences from high schools within easy driving distance from the campus. For about eight weeks during the summer, faculty members will adopt the teachers as regular members of their laboratories, giving them research assignments alongside graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. They will return the following summer for another eight weeks, as three new teachers join them.
Independent research is central to science.
Yet most high school teachers of science have prepared for their work in a system that emphasized textbook knowledge almost exclusively and separated teaching science from doing science. Often they have not had the experiences that allow them to convey the process and excitement of discovery to students. Gatto said the experience completely changed his perception of research. He spent the summer working on improving the chemistry of membranes used in fuel cells, devices that have the potential to replace gasoline power in cars and other applications. He said he was amazed by the dedication it took when he saw people working on projects for months, only to have them fail.