The goal of this three year project is to provide each isolated school district of Hawaii with teachers who are capable of supporting the teaching of hands-on inquiry based physical science units. Resource Teachers, who are high school teachers with excellent science backgrounds and an interest in working with young children, will be identified. They will be educated over a two year period on how young children learn science and the new curricular materials that are available to support instruction. During two consultive summers these Resource Teachers, supported by the project staff, will conduct five weeks of inservice training with elementary school teachers who have been identified as leaders in their schools. They will also support these teachers as they practice the new methodology in special summer science camp settings. During the school year these elementary Lead Teachers, with support from the Resource Teachers, will practice the new units of instruction. In the second and third year of the grant, supported by the Resource Teachers, the Lead Teachers will teach their colleagues about the new units. As a result, by the end of the grant period, each cluster of schools will contain one high school science teacher who can function as a Resource Teacher for all of the elementary school teachers in the district and two Lead Teachers per building who can provide special support for the other elementary school teachers in their building. The cost sharing will be 38% of the NSF portion.
