Teacher Professional Development

ACS provides teachers with opportunities to increase their content knowledge and enrich their methodologies to educate the next generation of scientists. We offer training and laboratory experiences for teachers who are interested in developing their skills and learning effective uses of ACS curricula and related materials in their classrooms. Your contribution gives teachers, who have the ability to touch so many lives, the latest tools to confer scientific knowledge and inspire scientific inquiry.

Summer Research Fellowships for High School Chemistry Teachers

• Utilizing the strong network of Project SEED mentors and coordinators, ACS offers an opportunity for high school chemistry teachers to spend a summer conducting hands-on research in a laboratory setting.
  
  
• Under the supervision of a scientist/mentor, teachers update content knowledge by conducting cutting-edge research, empowering them to excite and motivate their students toward careers in science.
  
  
• During the inaugural program in 2008, eight fellowships were distributed to teachers in Ohio, California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
  
  

Green Chemistry Workshops for High School Teachers

• The ACS Education Division and GCI jointly organize two, three-day green chemistry workshops for high school teachers. 2008 offerings included one in Pittsburgh and one in Raleigh-Durham with generous grant funding. Opportunities in 2009 will be announced as funding becomes available.
  
  
• The workshops feature lectures, laboratories, small-group discussions and problem-solving sessions, with a heavy emphasis on hands-on activities to model best practices in the classroom.
  
  
• These workshops provide teachers with the confidence they need to integrate green chemistry into the curriculum, thereby instilling an environmental ethic into the practice of chemistry at an early age.
  
  

Middle School Science Teachers Workshop

• ACS offers an interdisciplinary (chemistry, geology, biology and physics) program of Summer Professional Development Institutes to help upper elementary/middle school teachers improve their teaching in each content area.
  
  
• Progressing from a single, residential workshop in 2008 to three residential workshops in 2010, the three and a half day institutes are held on a college campus with access to laboratory and dormitory facilities for 20 teachers plus their district’s science coordinator.
  
  
• Participants develop a plan to conduct their own local professional development workshop based on the material covered in the summer workshop.
  
  

Help advance science education and meet the increasing demand for these workshops.