This project will deliver in-service training to 75 elementary school teachers each year for a period of two years. Participants will be drawn from several School Districts in New York City. The aim of the program is to improve physical science literacy and to provide techniques and strategies for the inclusion of current hands-on materials into classrooms. Two workshops will be conducted. Comfortable Physics Workshop I will introduce and explain those topics necessary to make elementary teachers comfortable with physics. Comfortable Physics Workshop II will bridge the gap between the physical concepts and the laboratory apparatus of Workshop I and the elementary school classroom. Workshop participants will meet for three hours each week for 15 weeks during the school year--more often during the summer months. In addition to lecture, lecture demonstrations, and hands-on laboratory work in both workshops, a project will be required of each participants.
