Iterative Design to Engage All (IDEA) Learners - UNC Institute for the Environment

Iterative Design to Engage All (IDEA) Learners is a teacher professional development program grounded in design thinking and centered on cutting-edge research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Together, researchers and high school STEM teachers will co-develop standards-aligned curricula, increasing teacher knowledge of PFAS research and pedagogy for incorporating research data into instruction. With a focus on engaging diverse learners in a locally relevant issue, IDEA Learners will increase teacher and student awareness of the evolving biomedical research landscape and career opportunities in environmental health sciences, cultivating a diverse biomedical workforce.

The UNC IE Center for Public Engagement with Science (CPES), in partnership with researchers at the UNC-Chapel Hill and NCSU Schools of Education, will launch this new teacher professional development initiative in the spring of 2022.

Using emerging PFAS research as a foundation, the IDEA Learners program will build the capacity of STEM teachers to engage ALL learners and cultivate a diverse biomedical workforce.

Participants in IDEA Learners will:

Utilize inclusive teaching strategies to engage diverse students in learning about a timely and relevant environmental health issue
Incorporate PFAS research findings, including data, into STEM instruction to promote data literacy
Increase student knowledge of and interest in biomedical research careers

Design Institutes:

Part 1: Investigating the human health effects of PFAS exposure
March 14-15, 2022
Agenda

Part 2: Designing classroom lessons on the human health effects of PFAS exposure
June 20-22, 2022
Agenda

Please direct program inquires to Jenna Hartley, Program Coordinator

Jenna Hartley	Dana Haine
Program Coordinator	Education Programs Director
Center for Public Engagement with Science	Center for Public Engagement with Science
jennamh@unc.edu	dhaine@unc.edu

This Multiple Principal Investigator Project is led by Dr. Kathleen Gray, Research Associate Professor in the UNC Institute for the Environment, and Dana Brown Haine, K-12 Science Education Manager for the UNC Institute for the Environment.

This project is administered by the UNC Institute for the Environment, with support from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Award Number R25GM142060-01. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.