The goal of the proposed """"""""Teacher/Scientist Partnerships: Impacting Drug Abuse"""""""" grant application is to implement a comprehensive program designed to create partnerships between pre-college educators and University scientists. Programming will engage K-12 drug abuse and science educators and pre-service teachers in the fields of science, health, and elementary education; and University of wisconsin drug abuse researchers and junior scientists (gradate students, post doctorates, and fellows) involved in drug abuse research. The program will have a positive impact a numbe of objectives of the US Department of Health and Human Services prevention recommendations as loulined in Healthy People 2000. Specifically, the program will provide cognitive and pedagogical information regarding drug abuse research to a diverse group of K-12 teacher; build upon the applicant's successful and proven Teacher Enhancement Program in biology Education (TEP); capitalize on the rich human and physical resources available at the University of wisconsin; develop linkages with the University's Center for addiction Research and Education (CARE), Center for health Policy and Program Evaluation (CHPPE), and Department of curriculum and Instruction (C&I); Create partnerships between a diverse group of University drug abuse scientists, K-12 educators, and their students; Develop and pilot creative strategies and curricula to link drug abuse reserch issues to science education; and develop strategies to attract more young people to future careers in drug abuse research. Activities to be completed during year one of the planned three year program include summer and academic year teacher training; devleopment and testing of new, exciting, and innovative curricula to support linkages between drug abuse research and science education; creating of storng outreach components to reinforce, complement, and extend the information and resources presented during summer and academic year programming; provision of both off-site and on- site technical assistance; establishment of a number of models of partnarships between educators, their studients, and scientists,including placement of pre-colege sicnece teachers in working research labs during the summer, ongoing communication via e-mail between classroom teachers working to incorporate durg abuse research principles and examples into science curricula, and/or stdents conducting drug abuse research projects with University sicentists, ongoin work between junior scientists and pre-college educators to develop classroom applications for durg abuse research examples, and field trips enabling students to visit working research labs; work with a cadre of """"""""Lead Teachers"""""""" who have interest, time, and commitment to do more in their own classrooms, school distict, or larger educational community; involvement of K-12 students in drug abuse research; dissemination of program information; and evaluation of program success.
