Partnership for Research and Education in Plants (PREP) @ MU
The Partnership for Research and Education in Plants (PREP) began at the Fralin Life Science Institute at Virginia Tech. The program brings together high school biology teachers, students, and plant scientists to form a scientific learning community focused on promoting knowledge and discovery. PREP teachers create inquiry-based learning experiences for students to learn concepts in genetics, biotechnology, and the nature of science by conducting hands-on experiments Arabidopsis thaliana (mouse-ear cress) plants.
PREP expanded to the University of Missouri Science Education Center approximately five years ago. There has been strong interest in the program among Missouri high school and Advanced Placement biology teachers. PREP supports teachers with the knowledge and skills to incorporate student-driven research and offers professional development opportunities for teachers to enhance their understanding of scientific research, experimental design, data collection, and data interpretation. The MU PREP program currently engages over 20 teachers and 2,000 students.
See workshops below for more information on how to participate. Workshop presentations and supplementary resources for teachers are available.
Contact C3 Program Coordinator, Lauren Kitchen at mulscc3program@missouri.edu.
C3-PREP Computational Biology
The University of Missouri-Howard Hughes Medical Institute (MU-HHMI) C3 Program and the Office of Science Outreach are reaching out to Missouri Teachers with new learning opportunities for middle school life science teachers, high school biology teachers, and high school students. Our goal is to engage teachers and students in learning about biology through computational tools including statistical analysis of laboratory data and the implementation of bioinformatics databases to investigate DNA/RNA nucleotide sequences and protein structures.
C3-PREP Computational Biology workshops will give teachers the opportunity to understand the tools implemented by scientific researchers and also gain experience with statistical analysis of experimental data and working with bioinformatics databases. This program provides teachers an opportunity to engage students as active learners and designing investigations with plants. MU plant research scientists and their labs provide support and materials for teachers to conduct inquiry-based investigations in their classrooms. Student results can be presented during the annual Exploring Life Sciences at MU Conference during MU Life Sciences Week.
Missouri Teacher Workshops
Three PREP teacher workshops are planned for each school year. All teacher participants will receive a stipend and supplementary materials to support teachers with the implementation of student-driven research projects and the collection, organization, statistical analysis, and interpretation of data. Registration for the April 9th workshop is closed. Contact Deanna Lankford (lankfordd@missouri.edu) for information about future workshops.
Workshop presentations, supplementary information, classroom activities, and useful links are available on the PREP teacher resources page.
Previous Workshops
Date: Saturday, April 9, 2011
Title: C3-PREP Computational Biology Workshop
Presenters: Dr. Chi-Ren Shyu (Director, MU Informatics Institute), Dr. J. Wade Davis (Assistant Professor, Dept. of Health Management and Informatics), Dr. Gavin Conant (Assistant Professor, Div. of Animal Sciences), Dr. Dmitry Korkin (Dept. of Computer Science)
Topics covered: Statistical analysis, Using basic statistics to analyze and interpret data, Bioinformatics databases, DNA/RNA nucleotide sequence, Amino acid sequence in proteins, Protein structure
Presentations: Genes, function and evolution (Gavin Conant), Proteins and structural bioinformatics (Dmitry Korkin)
Date: Saturday, November 6, 2010
Title: PREP Fall Workshop
Presenters: Amy Replogle (University of Missouri), Clayton Coffman (University of Missouri), Travis Plume (Belle High School)
Topics covered: Organizing, analyzing, and interpreting data; Basic statistical analysis; Developing of formal poster presentations; Using Microsoft PowerPoint; Planting and growing Arabidopsis seeds
Presentations: Plant Basics, Experimental Design, and Data Analysis (Clayton Coffman), Using PowerPoint to Create Scientific Posters (Amy Replogle)
Support
The MU PREP program is supported jointly by the MU Office of Science Outreach and the MU-HHMI C3 Program.
The Office of Science Outreach was established in 2008 as a joint venture between the MU Science Education Center and the Division of Biological Sciences. Ongoing support for the office comes from these two units, with additional program support provided by the MU Office of Research and grant funding from NSF, HHMI, Noyce Foundation, and MDHE.
Learn more and find resources on the Virginia Tech PREP website.