The recent MRSEC Teacher Workshop at UCSB was a Great Success. Junior High and High School math and science teachers from Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles Counties visited the UCSB Materials Research Laboratory for a day of curriculum presentations and workshops.
Photo courtesy of Ram SeshadriA record number of teachers gathered at the UCSB Materials Research Laboratory on March 16, 2007 for our eighth annual science curriculum workshop. Sixty secondary science and math teachers from Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles Counties spent the day at the MRL participating in curriculum demonstrations led by last summer's Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) participants. Teresa Spiteri (Biology, Dos Pueblos High School, Goleta), Leila Jirari (Biology, San Marcos High School, Santa Barbara) and Steven Ryan (Earth Science, Pioneer High School, Lompoc) each presented curriculum projects developed from their two-year RET experiences. Commented one participant after observing Ms. Spiteri's unit on Personal Health, "It was awesome. I can take the information and put it to use tomorrow." In addition to teacher presentations, participants toured UCSB's new Allosphere, a three-story immersive visualization space just opened in the California NanoSystems Institute, and attended a keynote address by Dr. Kai Ewert entitled "Designing Lipid DNA Complexes for Gene Therapy." The UCSB MRSEC has sponsored 50 RET teachers since 1999. RET curriculum projects are downloadable at http://www.mrl.ucsb.edu/RET.
