• Teachers prepare written Lesson and Action Plans for transferring to their schools and classes the concepts, technologies and methods learned during their time in the research labs and during the weekly seminar series. Since 2001 we have required the program participants to identify the National Science Standards addressed in their plans. Lesson Plans developed prior to 2001 had the Standards identified after the fact by a program alumnus. Science Teaching Standards A, B, D, E; Assessment Standards A, B, C and Science Content Standards: A, C, E, F, G are the most common addressed as a direct participation in the Summer Research Program. Currently, there are over 200 of the research-inspired, teacher-developed plans on the Program's website (http://www.scienceteacherprogram.org). One of the goals of Columbia's Program continues to be to provide the resources of the Program to as many educators as possible. By making them available on the website, we estimate that the lesson plans have made their way into ~4,700 classrooms. To date, 47,000 visitors (34,000 unique) have been recorded by the website's invisible counter. If 10% of the visitors each used one or more of the lesson plans, nearly 50,000 students have benefitted.
• We have always considered Columbia's Program to be a laboratory for studying the effects of professional development programs for science teachers on the teachers and their students, and for identifying ways to improve these programs. To this end, we continue to share the findings of our ongoing program evaluation. The following are examples of the data currently being shared with other professional development program: I. Surveys and classroom observations by trained educational consultants show that teachers use concepts, skills and materials from Columbia's program in their schools and classrooms. II. Student participation in Intel-type science talent competition project. III. Student participation in after-school science clubs/extra-curricular science activities. IV. The New York State Regents Examination is the "gold standard" for academic achievement in New York State. The results have been remarkably consistent over the nine years we have been collecting data on Regents Examination performance of students of participating and non-participating teachers. That is, a higher percentage of students of teachers participating in Columbia's program pass this examination each year than students of non-participating teachers in the same science departments and schools.

• 1. What has made the current and future years more of a challenge for the program is that Dr. Silverstein stepped down as Chairman of the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics. As Chairman he was able to leverage some of the Program's administrative support through the department. Now we face the challenge of obtaining 100% of the administrative program costs from outside sources. Our solution is to seek funding from sources that allow salary (a challenge in of itself!).
• In the first 13 years of the Program, we felt the pool of applicants to be of a high caliber. This past applicant pool was much weaker, for which we have no explanation. The Program is for two summers, with the second summer contingent on their performance during the first summer, both in the lab and at the weekly seminars. In the first 13 years, a total of only six teachers were not invited back for a second summer. The Program's Advisory Committee will be meeting in a few weeks to discuss not inviting back two of the teachers from just this past summer. The challenge before us is to identify a stronger pool of applicants. Those who will succeed in the lab and work well with the group during the Monday seminars.
• The third challenge piggy backs on Challenge #2. The New York City public school system has undergone a massive reogranization. Most of the Program's contacts for recruitment of applicants have moved on to new positions. The previous structure of 5 high school regions, each with a science coordinator, made it fairly easy to make their teachers aware of the benefits of applying to the Program. The restructuring has 10 regions, with most having no science coordinators to assist us in disseminating information about the Program.

• The Program's Website: http://www.ScienceTeacherProgram.org The Program's Website, established in 1995, introduces educators to the Program's activities. The Website has links to over 600 quality educational resources.
• The Program's Website (as described in #1) contains over 200 research-inspired lesson plans. The lesson plans are developed at the end of each summer. All lessons reference the National Science Standards and are segregated by science subjects. The lesson plans section of the Program's Website can be found at: http://www.scienceteacherprogram.org/tchrplan.html
• Columbia's Summer Research Program has been conducting an ongoing student outcomes study since 1994. The preliminary data is very encouraging. Dr. Samuel Silverstein, the Program's Director, has written a description of the evaluation methodology and findings to date. The preliminary report is titled "Impact of teacher participation in Columbia University's Summer Research Program for Secondary School Science Teachers on interest and achievement of their students in science." The report is dated April 11, 2003. The Program would be happy to share our findings with those who are interested.

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