This list is intended to assist OSU researchers develop connections between their research projects and K-12 education. If you are interested in including one of these projects in your research grant, please contact Kari O’Connell at kari.oconnell@oregonstate.edu.

Involve K-12 teacher in your research
Teachers’ participation in research programs improves their students’ achievement in science. ONREP staff can work with you to involve a middle or high school teacher in your research. In addition to participating in your research, the teacher would develop a project that connects your research back to their school or classroom and present this work at an appropriate conference and can even do a blog about their experience. We would recruit teacher applicants and select a teacher most suited to participate in your specific project. Working with a teacher would impact hundreds of students for years to come. Examples of similar past projects.

Associated Costs: ONREP staff salary to hire teacher, set up graduate credit for the teacher, support teacher in development of their project, and review teacher’s work; and teacher stipend and travel. (Rough estimate: $10,000 in direct costs*).

K-12 teacher workshop
Teachers will benefit from researcher involvement in a teacher workshop. PI and/or graduate students can share the results and impacts of their field studies and strategies and tips on developing and conducting authentic science inquiry projects. We can work with you to design a field activity related to your research that the teachers can practice during the workshop (and do with their students). A teacher workshop would provide a wealth of understanding to 10-20 Oregon teachers and thousands of their students. Example of a workshop.

Associated Costs: ONREP staff salary to market, plan and facilitate the workshop; substitute reimbursement funds for teachers (Rough estimate: $10,000 in direct costs*).

Researcher video clips
Middle and High school teachers are seeking ways to connect students to current content and careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Examples of research in process can open doors to students’ understanding and interest in pursuing further education in these fields. We will partner with you to produce a short video clip to:

• Provide a window into the process of scientific inquiry as a field scientist.
• Introduce relevant and engaging content that can be followed up on by teachers or students.
• Elicit new perspectives about what a scientist does and what a scientist looks like

The video clip will be part of the Lab Coats Optional video series and along with an online teachers' guide, will be made available to any teacher visiting the ONREP website. The video clip will be publicized to state and national educator networks, distributed in teacher training workshops, and marketed through the College of Forestry. 

Associated Costs: ONREP staff salary to help craft content and format that will be useable by teachers, correlate the video clip to state standards, and distribute the video clip; contract costs to produce the video clip (Rough estimate: $7,000 in direct costs*).

Researcher/graduate student blogs
Middle and High school teachers are seeking ways to connect students to current content and careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Examples of research in process can open doors to students’ understanding and interest in pursuing further education in these fields. If you think you have a graduate student interested in blogging with middle or high school students and teachers about their field research, we can help them find interested teachers and classrooms with which to work. For an example blog, see: http://oregonstate.edu/ua/webcomm/features/ice/ and http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/tropicalhummingbird/costa-rica-hummingbird-blog-2013/. This idea would have the most impact in conjunction with a teacher workshop or involving a teacher in your research (see above).

Associated Costs: ONREP staff salary to help craft content and format that will be useable by teachers and connect the blog to interested teachers and classrooms, teacher stipend to support teachers in incorporating blog into their teaching (Rough estimate: $4,000 in direct costs*).

*Note that all costs are estimates. All the estimates are DIRECT COSTS only.

Extended partnerships and projects
We have been successful in partnering with researchers on multi-PI/multi-institutional large projects, and would love to discuss projects that are broader in scope with you as well. Please contact Kari O’Connell (kari.oconnell@oregonstate.edu) if you have other ideas that you would like to discuss. For an example, see our work as K-12 education partner for the Andrews Forest Long-Term Ecological Research site and our work leading a citizen science hummingbird project with Dr. Matt Betts and Dr. Adam Hadley.