Interdisciplinary (99) This project is building comprehensive team skills via use of a Hierarchical Learning Ensemble (HLE). The team-model, an adaptation of Problem-Based-Learning (PBL) to a multi-level-team of graduate, undergraduate, and secondary-level students, aids the students learn how to function within heterogeneous teams. Protocols for preparing students to enter the workplace are being produced by assigning the HLEs the task of designing a novel biomaterial. The HLE experiences benefit all three academic levels of participants in appropriate ways. The project is disseminating products that increase science content knowledge, pedagogy, and allows students the opportunity to experience how research is done in the modern workplace.
