Designing Professional Development Workshops

The Science Education PartnershipS (SEPS) Program is a K12 science outreach program based in the Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing, Oregon State University.  Our most successful activity is offering professional development workshops for K12 teachers.  Teachers with access to highly current science information and state of the art techniques in science and technology are more confident and effective in presenting information and creating enthusiasm for science in their students.  SEPS has developed a template that can be used to develop training workshops in any curriculum area.  Funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and this template have allowed SEPS to offer training workshops in a variety of science and technology areas including molecular biology, geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS), materials science, field biology, ocean science and physical science for middle school.