9353347 Hessler This project will provide an intensive 3-week inservice, residential summer institute for Vermont middle level and ninth and tenth grade teachers. The content focus is on activity-based aquatic ecology as a vehicle for developing and teaching a model of integrative mathematics, science and technology to teachers and students. Thirty different teachers will come to the Saint Michael's campus each summer for three summers beginning in 1994. Each of the 90 teaches will commit to restructuring curricula in their schools to support their teaching of integrated aquatic ecology content to their students for at least three years following their Summer Institute and to learn development within their schools. Schools will be linked by modem and Vermont Ed-Net telecomputing to one another and to the campus, for data-sharing. Emphasis will be on the interpretation of data generated by collecting from points along each river and subsequent analyses. Data collected by Rivers Project schools will be shared with local, state and federal agencies. This proposal is appropriate for teacher enhancement because it is designed to prepare teams of Leader Teachers who will work with colleagues to being interdisciplinary science to middle school students through an integrative local rivers science project. It also meshes will with the initiatives of the Vermont Statewide Systemic Initiatives grant from NSF which is designed to teach integrative science, math, and technology. Non-NSF cost-sharing is approximately 22% of the amount requested from NSF.
