Institutions: Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU); Tennessee State University (TSU)
Co-PIs: Anthony Farone, Ph.D., Mary Farone, Ph.D., E. Lewis Myles, Ph.D., Kim Sadler, Ed.D.
The TRIAD program will make a three-fold connection between graduate fellows (GF), partner teachers (PT) and their high school biology students, and biotechnology/biomedical industry partners (IP) in middle Tennessee. The theme is ?Applications of Cellular and Molecular Biology Research.? TRIAD will allow GFs to (1) improve communication skills through teaching and presentations while sharing their research with PTs, students, other GFs, and IPs; (2) connect their research to applied technologies/products through a classroom biology unit; and (3) interact with industry scientists. Each summer, GF-PT pairs will spend time in the research laboratory of the GF and in the IP?s facility. Following this experience, the GF-PT pair will develop a teaching unit on a research area of interest to the GF-IP. GFs will also mentor high school biology students in research projects. Fellows will help students develop hypotheses, conduct experiments, analyze data, draw conclusions, and submit a presentation to the Tennessee Junior Academy of Science. Intellectual merit of TRIAD includes research to determine if industry interactions and research mentoring experiences create better prepared graduate student scientists, and if engaging PTs and their students in inquiry-based research with GFs will increase standardized test scores in biology and/or encourage more students to pursue STEM careers.
The TRIAD program three-fold interactions will have broad impacts through industry connections and a K-12 experience with STEM graduate education; engaging high school biology students from high-need schools in inquiry-based research; and with industry partnerships extending long-term, sustainable programs impacting the science education continuum (K-20+).
