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May 1, 2013

ULM awarded $118,270 to provide professional development for LA teachers

The Louisiana Systemic Initiatives Program (LaSIP), a division of the Louisiana Board of Regents, funded the ULM College of Education and Human Development's proposal for a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) teacher professional development program—Out Standing in a TEAM.

The program was fully funded at $118,270.

"Our goal is to provide the content and the skills for interdisciplinary teams of teachers and their students to connect their school sites to local research sites and to each other," said Dr. Lynn Clark, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at ULM and principal investigator for the grant.

Dr. Ava Pugh, professor of curriculum, instruction, and leadership; Dr. Anne Case Hanks, assistant professor of atmospheric sciences; and Dr. Joydeep Bhattacharjee, associate professor of biology, worked together as co-principal investigators.

This July, the Out Standing in a TEAM program will bring six teams of 30 middle school teachers from six parishes to the ULM campus.

The content focus of the project is an integrated STEM and interdisciplinary approach to studying the various aspects of "Weather-Ecosystems Interface."

Participants will manage this through the collection and analysis of environmental variables at their respective schools, as well as at local and national research sites and through mathematical representations of those variables.

Then participants will read and write about how those variables impact our local ecosystems and global community.

The program builds on the current LaSIP project, Out Standing in the Field: Phase II.

"I am fortunate to be a part of a wonderful team of researchers with a common goal," said Bhattacharjee.

"This grant has provided great opportunities to the school teachers in the region through the dissemination of novel teaching tools and activities that take learning science among students to the next level."

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