This proposal provides a plan for professional development and structured opportunities in science to 200 middle school teachers in four targeted urban communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. The teachers will be almost exclusively from districts whose populations are underserved and multi- ethnic. Over a period of three years, teachers will receive training in inquiry-based physical science through summer institutes and special sessions during the academic year. Training will include an intensive 80-hour summer workshop and special return sessions, based on successful existing models developed at the Exploratorium Teacher Institute. The goal of the project is to develop a core group of teachers in each of the four target communities, who have had progressively more responsible levels of involvement with hands-on science, and who, with occasional follow-up attention from the Teacher Institute, will be capable of carrying on a professional collaboration on their own. Cost sharing is equivalent to $43% of the NSF award.
