This application requests support to continue the MHSSRAP program for a three year period under the NCRR Minority Initiative: High School Students and K-12 Teachers. Specifically, we proposed to provide a 10 week summer research experience for 10 high school students and 2 high school science teachers in molecular life sciences teachers in molecular life sciences research labs. Each year, a pool of 17 active research faculty will be available to serve as mentors for the twelve individuals, students and teachers. No faculty mentor will train more than one student and one teacher in any summer period, most will train only one candidate. Over the course of the ten week summer session, the students/teachers will perform a research project under the direction of the faculty mentor. The Students/teachers will be instructed in all of he safety requirements of the particular operations of the lab. Usually, they will work side-by-side with a graduate student, post-doc or technician in the lab. As the students/teachers develop technical expertise, they will start to work more and more independently. At the outset of the summer session or within a week or two, the mentor and the student/teacher will outline a specific research problem to be instructed in all of the safety requirements of the particular operations of the lab. Usually, they will work side-by-side with a graduate student, post-doc or technician in the lab. As the students/teacher develop technical expertise, they will start to work more and more independently. At the outset of the summer session or within a week or two, the mentor and the student/teacher will outline a specific research problem to be addressed over the remainder of the training session. Usually, the mentor's lab group will meet once a week or once ever other week to discuss the progress of the members of the lab. These """"""""group meetings"""""""" are an excellent opportunity for the student/teachers to observe and participate in the processes of presenting data informally, designing experiments, trouble-shooting technical problems, and relating experimental results with published data from other investigators. At the end of the summer session, the students/teachers will be required to write a summary of their research experience. Over the course of the following academic years, the students will be invited to attend two series of lectures held yearly at NMSU: Distinguished visiting Scientists Lecture Series, and the MBRS/MARC speaker series. In addition, during the course of their summer session, they will attend bi-weekly undergraduate student presentations on research projects and a discussion group on bioethics,environmental issues, and the human genome project. Each of the 17 participating faculty have undergraduates, graduate students, and often technicians and post-docs performing research in their labs, many of these individuals are ethnic minorities. The research labs at NMSU are rich in state-of-the-art molecular life science research projects are multicultural in the nature of the individuals performing the research. For both of these reasons, the high school students who participate in a summer research experience at NMSU will be stimulated to pursue advanced degrees in the sciences at NMSU or at other universities. Many NMSU faculty participate in a variety of programs with the local school systems to improve the science curriculum. From this extensive network of science faculty who know both the technical issues of scientific research and the challenges of teaching, the science instructors will be able to develop new teaching approaches and tools.
