NCRR Issues 17 Science Education Partnership Awards

$21 Million Will Engage Students and the Public in Health Sciences

October 22, 2009 — The topics may seem beyond the grasp of most primary- or secondary-school students: bioinformatics, sickle-cell disease and neuroscience. But scientists and teachers receiving new grants from the National Institutes of Health disagree. Their efforts to teach students about these topics are three among 17 NIH-funded Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) projects administered by the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR).

NCRR will provide an estimated total of $19.2 million along with nearly $1.4 million in funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to fund the 17 SEPAs. The awards provide two to five years of grant support to stimulate scientific curiosity and encourage hands-on science education activities among students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The grants support partnerships among scientists, educators, museums and community organizations to encourage choosing science as a career path and to improve public understanding of NIH-funded biomedical research.

“For nearly two decades, the SEPA program has funded innovative methods of sparking students’ imaginations and excitement about science,” said L. Tony Beck, Ph.D., SEPA project officer, NCRR’s Division for Clinical Research Resources. “These new awards embody SEPA’s goals by creatively engaging students in learning about biomedical research.”

The 17 awards bring the SEPA portfolio to 73 active projects.

These new SEPA recipients are:

• Arizona Science Center (Phoenix): “Framing New Pathways to Medical Discovery for Families, Students and Teachers.” Estimated Five-year Award: $1.2 million.
• Boston University Medical Campus: “CityLab Promotes Understanding of Clinical Trials.” Estimated Five-Year Award: $1.3 million.
• Children’s National Medical Center (Washington): “Being Me.” Estimated Five-year Award: $1.4 million.
• Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.): “ASSET: Advancing Secondary Science Education with Tetrahymena.” Estimated Five-year Award: $1.3 million.
• Montshire Museum of Science (Norwich, Vt.): “Connecting Classrooms and Community with the Health Sciences.” Estimated Five-year Award: $780,000.
• Northwestern University (Chicago): “Science Club: Building A Science Community Partnership with the Boys and Girls Club.” Estimated Five-year Award: $1.4 million.
• Purdue University (West Lafayette, Ind.): “Fat Dogs and Coughing Horses: Animal Contributions toward a Healthier Citizenry.” Estimated Five-year Award: $1.3 million.
• Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.): “The Stanford SEPA Project.” Estimated Five-year Award: $1.3 million.
• Tufts University School of Medicine (Boston): “A Collaborative Approach to Real-World Science in the Classroom.” Estimated Five-year Award: $1.3 million.
• University of California, Davis: “How Sure Are You? Science, Biostatistics and Cancer Education.” Estimated Five-year Award: $1.2 million.
• University of Florida (Gainesville): “Biomedical Explorations: Bench to Bedside.” Estimated Three-year Award: $808,000.
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Champaign, Ill.): “Project NEURON (Novel Education for Understanding Research on Neuroscience).” Estimated Five-year Award: $1.3 million.
• University of Minnesota Twin Cities (Minneapolis): “BRAIN to High Schools.” Estimated Five-year Award: $1.4 million
• University of South Carolina (Columbia): “SCienceLab.” Estimated Two-year Award: $536,000.
• The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio: “Positively Aging: Maximizing the Healthspan.” Estimated Five-year Award: $1.4 million
• University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee: “Biology-Environmental Health Science Nexus: Inquiry, Content and Communication.” Estimated Five-year Award*: $1.4 million.
  *Funding for this SEPA is provided by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH.
• Virginia Tech (Blacksburg): “Building an Infrastructure for Research Collaborations.” Estimated Five-year Award: $1.3 million.

Full descriptions of each of the newly funded projects are available at www.ncrr.nih.gov/sepa/2009.

Among this year’s innovative SEPA programs is one that uses art to teach elementary-school students in low-income and low-literacy areas about such subjects as asthma and sickle-cell disease. Children’s National Medical Center, the George Washington University School of Medicine and the Graduate School of Education and Human Development, the District of Columbia Public Schools, and Prince George’s County Public Schools are collaborating with the National Children’s Museum in this five-year program entitled “Being Me.”

The program will create novel art-based interactive projects to enhance the biomedical curriculum for fourth-grade students. “Being Me” will launch at three elementary schools serving low-income and low-literacy children, as well as in hospital clinics and event spaces. Its five focus areas each represent a critical health risk or opportunity for minority populations: asthma, injury prevention, obesity, sleep and sickle cell disease. The primary aims are to improve fourth-grade students’ and their parents’ understanding of health-related behavior, to give children hands-on experience to excite their imaginations about health and science, and to provide teachers with tools to integrate health-science into existing curricula.

Another exciting SEPA collaboration will engage high school students in Minnesota, in the St. Paul Public Schools and the Anoka-Hennepin School District. Scientists at the University of Minnesota will teach summer “BrainU” classes for high school teachers about neuroscience and inquiry-based learning. The teachers, in turn, will develop hands-on, experimental neuroscience modules to teach their students. To determine the success of the program, the collaborators will evaluate teacher and student knowledge and attitudes in comparison to teachers and classrooms not involved in the SEPA program.

For more information about the SEPA program, visit www.ncrr.nih.gov/sepa. For more information about SEPA-funded projects, visit www.ncrrsepa.org.