While students departed for a well-deserved summer break, Idaho secondary education teachers and Boise State faculty were just getting started. Innovative Science Partnerships for Investing in Regional Education, or INSPIRE, is a program launched in the summer of 2024 that places Idaho science teachers in Boise State research labs.
Led by Interim Dean Marie-Anne de Graaff, who launched it during her time as Associate Dean, INSPIRE pairs faculty members with science teachers from regional schools. The teachers work a full-time job as a laboratory assistant during the summer, receiving a stipend for their work. They contribute to original research projects, present their work at academic conferences and work alongside other lab staff and their supervising professors to publish in academic journals.
“It’s unusual for teachers to do research,” said Chad Cooper, a science teacher at Mountain View High School who joined Assistant Professor Jenée Cyran’s chemistry lab as part of INSPIRE. “I think they’re lacking in that experience, which you can bring to the classroom.”
The teachers also bring projects and activities back to their students when the school year resumes in the fall. Dawn Bolen, who teaches life science and biology at Fairmont Junior High, worked with Assistant Professor Leonora Bittleston. In the Bittleston Lab, she took microbiome samples from sagebrush leaves native to the Boise foothills. Now, Bolen plans to do a similar classroom activity with her students, making leaf presses from local plants to study the microscopic world around us.
“It’s absolutely changed how I teach my classes,” Bolen said. “It also impacted how our students see what happens in the biology field.”
“It’s absolutely changed how I teach my classes. It also impacted how our students see what happens in the biology field.”
Teachers like Cooper and Bolen bring their experiences back to the classroom, giving students a picture of day-to-day life as a scientist. “Science seems so invisible to people,” Cooper said. “[INSPIRE] brought science to life. It’s amazing how much I’ve learned about all the details: how scientists write papers, how to get into journals and what a professor who runs a lab does.”
INSPIRE is possible thanks to the Partners in Science 2.0 grant from the Murdock Charitable Trust and the hard work of the College of Arts and Sciences Research and Creative Activity Hub.