PreMiEr is committed to providing research experiences for K-12 and community college teachers through outreach events that bring PreMiEr faculty and scholars to your schools, science fairs, or other events, or more directly with teachers through our annual Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program.

In our RET program, teachers local to PreMiEr universities will attend an initial, online boot camp to learn more about PreMiEr and its research goals before being provided a mentored research project.  During their time spent at one of PreMiEr’s participating universities, they will gain critical literature review skills, perform hands-on research, and have opportunities to attend weekly seminars with center faculty and leaders of industry. It is hoped that by the end of the program, our RET participants will have created an age-appropriate lesson plan based on PreMiEr topics and research to bring back to their own classrooms and share more broadly with other educators.

The goals of the RET are to increase awareness of career paths for microbiome engineering for teachers and their students, help instructors design relevant microbiome-centered curricular materials for use in their home classrooms, and provide opportunities for dissemination of developed materials. Participants will be encouraged to attend future PreMiEr events and return to their host labs alongside their students.

Summer 2023 RET  Lesson Plans and Pictures