Cultivating the next generation

Boston Urban Fellows (formerly Project STAMP – Science, Technology and Math Partnerships) partners graduate fellows in biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and physics with teachers in K-12 classrooms in Boston public schools.  Over 70 students have been supported with over $3M in NSF funds.  GK-12 improves the fellows’ understanding of classroom instruction and the problems of urban education K-12.  GK-12 fellows collaborate with their partner teachers on ways to enhance the content of the curriculum by developing new modules, designing new activities, providing demos, assisting with labs, and helping students with science fair projects.  Two models exist: full support fellowships, and shared support fellowships.  Full support fellows participate in summer observation and training and then work in their classroom roughly 10 hr/week for the full academic year.  Partial support fellows are 50% supported by a faculty sponsor, allowing two students to participate in GK-12 for one faculty RA contribution.  Students pursue their research in the other half-year.  See http://www.bu.edu/gk12/index.html for details.