IBIEM K-12 Outreach

The 2017-18 IBIEM class recently presented hands-on demonstrations of their original designs of K-12 outreach lesson plan and activities to outreach educators Dr. Patrick Green from the Duke SciREN outreach group (the Scientific Research and Education Network) and Celeste Kathleen, Community Engagement Coordinator from the Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh N.C. These hands-on activities were designed to translate concepts related to microbiome research or engineering for use in public school classrooms as well as local museums in the Research Triangle Area with the goal of getting young students and teachers interested in this exciting area of research.

This in-class outreach forum was part of the IBIEM students broader communication training and allowed graduate student class members to get feedback from community members with experience in public scientific outreach. These activities and written lesson plans may eventually be disseminated by IBIEM trainees at the fall 2018 SciREN networking event North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh which will allow Duke and NCA&T IBIEM trainees to share their lessons and activities with North Carolina teachers for use in K-12 classes.

Marbles Kids Museum has also invited the IBIEM class to demonstrate their interactive activities and exhibits for their museum visitors. One focus of IBIEM is to train graduate students in broader outreach dissemination so stay tuned! Additional avenues for sharing these engaging activities are planned including posting tested lesson plans on the IBIEM and SciREN websites.