SC Life Project/EMRGE

Kelly Smith has been busy working on enriching the K-12 science curricula. As part of the EMRGE project, proposed and coordinated by the Rutland Institute as the 2009-2010 Community-based Project of SC Life, he will be meeting with six science teachers from Westside and TL Hanna High Schools to help them fine tune lesson plans on stem cell biology in the fall and genetic engineering in the spring. They will focus on comfortably incorporating discussions of various ethical aspects as they impact society into their classes. Kelly’s work will build on some professional development the teachers received this summer when Dan and Teddi lead them through Ethics Across the Curriculum, a program that Dan initiated for Clemson faculty 10 years ago.

Kelly is also working on a project to survey middle and high school science teachers across the state to see what sorts of challenges they face teaching evolution and evolutionary concepts in their classes. The EMRGE project opened the door for him to meet with middle and high school science teachers in Anderson to get feedback to use in constructing the survey, which should be distributed statewide online by November. Once the data are collected and analyzed he and his collaborators in the department of Education and the SC Life project will begin to see what sorts of things professional scientists can do to assist teachers in K-12 with this difficult task.

 

For more Information:

~Dr. Kelly Smith

kcs@clemson.edu