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