Project Grant 2147137

This $269,884 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) supports the Collaborative Research: Biorets project. The project engages pairs of high school teachers from schools serving marginalized STEM student populations in authentic research experiences at three Long Term Ecological Research sites spanning Arctic, temperate forest, and coastal marine ecosystems. Over an 18-month period, teacher pairs will conduct field and lab research with faculty and graduate students on the impacts of environmental stressors like floods and droughts on local biodiversity. Teachers will compare experiences virtually and at an in-person capstone at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. They will engage their students in authentic science learning and develop open access data products documenting their research. The goals are to train teachers in global change ecology techniques, climate change impacts on biodiversity, and sharing research experiences with students. The University of California, Santa Barbara receives the funding as awarded by the NSF to support this teacher professional development and student engagement project.