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. 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.
Downloadable Lesson Plans
Lesson | Grade | Author | Year |
Where are bacteria? | Elementary | Charlie Hiatt | 2023 |
A ‘Berry’ Cool Extraction | Elementary | Charlie Hiatt | 2023 |
It All Matters! | Elementary | Kimberly Griffis | 2023 |
Bacteria- the Good and the Bad | Elementary | Kimberly Griffis | 2024 |
Research Report Writing/Technical Writing | Middle | Eric Gaestel | 2023 |
Analyzing Diet Data Return Report and Its Impact on Diet Decisions | High | April Hester | 2023 |
Building and Modeling of Molecular Biomolecules & Biosystems | High | Alisha Howard | 2024 |
Exploring Earth’s Hidden Heroes-Unveiling the Secrets of Microbes and Soil | High | McKenna Martin | 2024 |
Food For Thought-Statistically Speaking | High | Amy Gross | 2024 |
Hitchhiker’s Guide to Datascience | Adv. High to Undergrad | Matthew Hairston | 2024 |
Microbes in the School House | High | April Hester | 2024 |
A Spotlight on Bioinformatics and Data Science | Adv. High to Undergrad | Matthew Hairston | 2023 |