American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) and Botanical Society of America (BSA) are recruiting 20 PlantingScience Fellows to participate in Digging Deeper Project

Digging Deeper: Developing a Model for Collaborative Teacher/Scientist Professional Development

Are you passionate about science education? Would you like to build connections with high school biology teachers and their students? Are you excited about an opportunity to share what’s so exciting about plants and science with the next generation? Did you receive valuable mentoring as a student and want to pay it forward? Here’s your chance to get involved with an NSF-supported research program built around the award-winning PlantingScience online mentoring community. The project is bringing teachers, scientists, students, and technology together to change the way students experience plants and science in their high school classrooms.

Application Deadline – February 15, 2017

Eligibility

Applicants for the PlantingScience Fellow position should be early career scientists with an abiding interest in and professional experience relevant to:

• Collaborating with classroom teachers to help students learn how to conduct research on plants.
• Taking part in face-to-face and online professional development to help enhance the practice of teaching science in high schools.
• Participating in a research project to find out how collaborations among teachers, research scientists, and students can lead to enhanced student learning.
• Mentoring students as they work more with plants and develop mastery of the process of science.

Time Commitment

• Summer 2017 Institute – Fellows are required to attend ONE workshop in Colorado Springs, CO June 12-16 OR July 10-14. Expenses are covered by the program.
• Professional Interactions – Fellows will attend monthly videoconference calls with teachers and participate in online orientation and discussion June 2017 – January 2018.
• Student Mentoring – Fellows will be PlantingScience scientist mentors for 2 student teams during the session: mid-September through late November, 2017. Teams and Fellows will exchange comments online about 3 times/week while the projects are active (most projects last 3-4 weeks).
• Supporting Teachers – Fellows will help assigned teachers setup, monitor, and act as a backup mentor for student projects to keep projects and conversations going strong September – November, 2017

Communication

Fellows and students will be able to communicate online via the robust PlantingScience platform. Students can post questions for their scientist mentor about their investigations. Fellows may offer insights about plant biology, help provide guidance about conducting scientific research, suggest resources for the students, and/or ask questions to probe or stimulate student thinking. Communication with PS program directors is similarly robust and managed via the platform and email.

Compensation for Fellows

• Stipend – $2000 stipend: 2/3 distributed after the summer institute and 1/3 after Fellow completes project completion survey(s)
• Expenses reimbursed for the summer institute
• One-year membership in either BSA or ASPB along with basic meeting registration for either society’s 2018 annual meeting.

Apply Now