No data present at this time

• SUMMER STUDENT PROGRAM Challenges: 1. Increase the participation of minorities and other underrepresented students. 2. Create a culture of science with the SSP as part of the overall experience and not just a one-time event. 3. Have one start date for the SSP. Recommendations: We will increase our visits to colleges and high schools that have a high percentage of underrepresented minorities. Beginning with the 2013 SSP, we will implement one start date, which will be June 8, 2013. The program will be a uniform 10-weeks long for all high school and college participants. We will leverage our connections with RISE program directors nationwide to give short, 2-to-4-day intensive outreach programs on site and incorporate the JAX Summer Student Program as an incentive for students to continue their work. We will expand our distance learning courses in systems biology. The JAX Independent Studies in Computational Biology course, developed in 2006, uses distance learning and a course management system to teach students cutting edge techniques in Computational Biology and Statistics. They form research teams and design a project, write an NIH-formatted proposal, and conduct their research with JAX mentors. These distance courses have been a very successful way to attract qualified students to the SSP. We will also be incorporating a web-based course management system into the SSP to encourage students to access a wide range of skill-building materials to strengthen core skills of problem-solving, data management, and scientific presentation.
• ACADEMIC-YEAR HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM Challenges: 1. Continue to attract qualified, dedicated students to the program. 2. Connect the students in the program so that they have a stronger sense of community among themselves and at JAX. Recommendations: We continue to work with local high school science teachers to find the best, most-motivated students. We are investigating outreach programs to couple with the academic-year internships to bring students into science earlier and make this program an integral part of a longer-range strategy. As part of this strategy, we will be authoring supplemental course material and posting it on a web-based course management system (moodle). We have installed two servers that we will be populating for middle school and high school students. Additional lectures on support core processes will also aid the students and help build community.
• MASTERING SCIENCE PROGRAM/SABBATICAL PROGRAM Challenges: 1. Attracting teachers to the programs. 2. Building community. Recommendations: As with the above two programs, we must continue to get the word out to teachers that the program exists and find the best candidates through proactive outreach and recruitment activities at UMaine and throughout the state. Making the Mastering Science Program/Sabbatical Program a part of a larger teacher outreach will raise visibility and add additional teacher training. We will be including state-of-the-art course management systems to help teachers keep in touch with science and provide them with modules for the classroom. JAX organized and hosted the Maine State Science Fair in 2011 and 2012, which has helped to raise visibility for our hands-on science training programs. We will have an informational booth at the Maine Science Teachers conference and will use this opportunity to promote all three of our mentoring programs.

Back to Jackson Laboratory