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College professors have complained for years about the poor preparation of many of the students who emerge from high school science and mathematics classes. But high school teachers often respond that they are constrained by a heavy course load, minimal resources, and inflexible curricula. Instead of blaming us, they say, why don't universities help us? A growing number of institutions are trying to do just that. At the University of Colorado at Boulder, high school and middle school teachers can take Saturday workshops filled with practical ideas for bringing biology class to life. A workshop entitled "Rainbow Electrophoresis," for example, attracts 16 teachers who learn low-cost methods of introducing students to the concept of DNA electrophoresis. "Until kids actually manipulate the materials and do it themselves, they doubt what you're teaching them," says Tammie Meyer, a teacher at Boulder High School who participated in a recent workshop. "They learn ten times more this way." The workshops, free to teachers, are only one way the university is assisting local schools. Both graduate students and faculty members from a campus "Science Squad" visit local classrooms to carry out demonstrations and interact with students. Another initiative brings students from two inner-city schools to Boulder for weekend bioscience workshops and to learn about campus life. Undergraduates from the campus volunteer in Denver schools through a science partnership program. During the summer, high school biology teachers take special academic courses on campus and work on research projects with university scientists. The University of Colorado is not alone in trying to strengthen ties with local science teachers. On the same day teachers gathered in Boulder for the electrophoresis workshop, for example, Texas Tech University sponsored a regional conference where elementary and secondary school teachers in the Lubbock area explored hands-on methods for teaching students about animal behavior, electron microscopy, and more than 25 other topics. Cornell University manages a computer discussion group where high school biology teachers swap ideas via modem. Gettysburg College sends a "science van" with modern scientific equipment to nearby schools. Rice University runs a teacher resource center.
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Finding the Time At the University of Colorado at Boulder, the vice chancellor's office has created an institutional structure that leaves professors free to concentrate on instruction. A former science teacher, Julie Graf, coordinates the biology outreach programs and identifies opportunities for participation by professors as well as undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and research associates. Graf also works closely with local teachers, often incorporating their suggestions into new programs. Such support systems make it easier to "use everyone's talents efficiently," Graf says, but they require additional resources. "Financially it's hard for the university to take care of its undergraduates, even before sharing the pie with the K-12 community," says Graf, who is concerned about what will happen to outreach programs at the University of Colorado and elsewhere if financial pressures intensify.
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Scientist-in-residence Louisa Stark leads a Saturday
workshop at the University of Colorado at Boulder for science teachers from
local high schools and middle schools. 
ndergraduate biology begins not with cells or genetics but with something
even more complicated: elementary and secondary school.
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