The Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California at Berkeley will be the site of a three-year Primary Leadership Institute in Science and Mathematics (PRISM) for teams of K-3 teachers and teacher educators nationwide. PRISM is based on a previously NSF-funded program, and will provide education in both content and instructional strategies, as well as preparing teachers to serve as specialists and providers of inservice. A 4-week summer institute providing 120 hours of educational enhancement to 30 teachers and specialists will be offered each year (90 teachers/3 years). During the academic year, participants will receive a regular newsletter, mini-grants to support school-year leadership activities, and will attend leadership conferences. A new facet of this project is the involvement of 20 teacher educators (60 total) each project year from institutions nationwide. These teacher educators will attend the PRISM Institute for one week to receive inservice specific to adapting the PRISM model for use with teachers in their areas. This leadership proposal is appropriate for teacher enhancement because it is designed to enhance the science knowledge and teaching, and develop leadership skills and efforts of teachers of grades K-3, and because it will also provide a 1-week workshop for science educators who will be teamed with teacher participants when possible; thus the project will have far-reaching impact, not only through the efforts of teacher participants, but also through the pre- service and classroom teachers reached by participating teacher educators. Non-NSF cost-sharing is approximately 28% of the amount requested from NSF.
