Download or read book Resident Scientists in the Classroom written by Kristina Maria Dame and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Science Foundation (NSF) and Texas Pioneer Foundation supported program Project Flowing Waters, a NSF Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) program, funded ten doctoral students in the Texas State University Biology and Geography Departments to serve as "resident scientists" in high and middle school science classrooms. This study examines the first two years of this program in the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years. The science teachers were from two junior high schools and one high school in the San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District (SMICSD). The education part of Project Flowing Waters was to provide SMCISD science classrooms with a "resident scientist" who would develop inquiry science lessons and describe their scientific research to secondary students. Project Flowing Waters GK-12 fellows, "resident scientists", had two jobs; to conduct scientific research and to collaborate with local secondary science teachers on inquiry science lessons. Through this program, middle and high school students experienced resident scientist led inquiry lessons and field trips to enable them to master the science Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, (TEKS) throughout the entire academic year. The purpose of this study to determine the secondary school students' attitudes towards science before and after their experiences with the NSF GK-12 fellows, "resident scientists". The primary data sources in this study are pre and post student attitude surveys. Other secondary data include applications, lesson plans, research posters, pictures, test results and demographic information. We analyzed the attitudes of secondary school students (n= 126) in 2 science teachers classes in the first year and (n=284) in 5 science teachers' classes that had NSF GK-12 Fellows. We compared their attitudes prior to and after their experiences with resident scientists.