9554163 Thier The proposed 39-month project (starting on 1 April 1996) will implement the Chemicals, Health, Environment, and Me (CHEM) project in ten school districts. The CHEM project is part of the Science Education for Public Understanding Program (SEPUP) of the Lawrence Hall of Science. The proposed project will combine summer leadership conferences for teacher-leaders and in-district project-run experiences for other teachers that will serve 630 teachers and 10 school administrators and 37,000 students from ten school districts. The project will provide three years of ongoing support and leadership training in issue-oriented elementary science to each partner school district. The continuous in-district assistance by the local science mentors, the trained teacher-leaders, and the project staff, together with the commitment of the local administration, will establish the climate and infrastructure required to improve science education in each of the partner school districts. Critical to the long-term success of this effort are: (1) the continuing development of teacher-leaders as agents of change through their leadership and their adaptation and design of instructional materials for local use and (2) the higher degree to which partner districts adopt or increase their commitment to materials-centered science generally and issue-oriented science specifically.
