Program Contacts

NSF-EPSCoR
Dr. Anne Sylvester annesyl@uwyo.edu,
307-766-4993

Dr. Randy Lewis silk@uwyo.edu,
307-766-2147

Barbara  Kissack bkissack@uwyo.edu,
 307-766-2033

College of Education
Dean Patricia McClurg, patmc@uwyo.edu,
307-766-3145

William J Medina-Jerez
wmedinaj@uwyo.edu
307-766-5521

UW/Casper College Center
Assoc. Dean Robert Scott Seville,   sseville@uwyo.edu,  307-268-2543

 Mailing Address
Wyoming EPSCoR
University of Wyoming
P.O. Box 3622
Wyo Hall 419
Laramie, WY 82071
 

The Science Teacher Education Program (STEP) provides UW secondary science education majors with an opportunity to gain hands-on research experience combined with the opportunity to develop lesson plans based on their research for use in their student teaching residency.

 The STEP Fellowships are awarded to science education majors in the spring semester of their junior year.  This three semester fellowship program (summer, fall and spring) carries a stipend of $3,000 to both the STEP Fellow and the mentor graduate student..  Additionally, funding is possible to the secondary school for lab equipment with which to carry out the lesson plan.

 Participation and collaborations will involve STEP Fellows, mentoring high school teachers, mentoring graduate students in the sciences at UW, members of the College of Education and UW/Casper College Center and Wyoming NSF EPSCoR.

 Program outcomes include:

•  STEP Fellows will have hands-on university research experience that will contribute to their ability to  design real hands-on experiments for secondary students.  The research/teaching experience will be a significant addition to their résumé.
   

• STEP Fellows will develop inquiry-based lesson plans and innovative experiments that can be incorporated into secondary school science classes.
   

•  The lesson plans will belong to both the STEP Fellow and to the secondary school mentor teacher. 
   

•  Wyoming NSF EPSCoR can provide funding for the purchase of specialized equipment as needed for the lesson plan and this equipment will remain with the secondary schools.

 Program Overview

The program begins with a six-week summer research experience in the summer between the junior and senior years.   Each STEP Fellow will be paired with a secondary school mentor teacher in the Fellow’s selected area of science.  

       The STEP Fellows will also be paired  with graduate students in a UW research lab and work directly with the graduate student to get hands-on research experience and begin to develop a teaching unit to bring to the secondary classroom. 

This is followed in the fall by the development of a lesson plan based on their summer research that can bring real research into the secondary classroom.  Normally this will occur concurrently with the science methods class.

  University professors will assist in the translation of the research experience into a viable hands-on, real research experience for the secondary students.  STEP Fellows will meet with their secondary school mentor teachers during this development phase of the project.  In the spring semester, as part of their regular student teaching residency, the Fellows will teach the lesson to secondary students.  Finally, the STEP Fellows will present their experience in STEP during the Wyoming Undergraduate Research Day in April.

The exchange between the STEP Fellow and graduate student is fundamental to the success of the program. Graduate students will continue to work with the Fellow and will travel to the teaching site to assist with execution of the experiment with secondary school students.

 Awards Available

• $3,000 stipend to STEP Fellow during summer research

• $3,000 stipend to Mentor Graduate Student during summer research

• Possible  funds for equipment to implement the secondary school lesson plan