Year 3 findings: 

1. Classroom implementation of curriculum materials. Teachers continued to implement their developed curriculum materials in classroom. Furthermore, returning teachers got to pilot their curriculum materials during various summer outreach programs (middle and high school students). The PIs visited some of the schools and observed implementation.

2. Year 3 Teacher recruitment. Year 3 participants (a total of 9) were again a mix of returning teachers and new teachers. In particular, there were six returning teachers: Adam Ford (African American), Alex Robinson, Jefferey Farell, Angela Kolonich (female), Wendy Johnson (female), and John Thon, and three new teachers: Lisa Wininger (female), Marsha Crawford (female), and Dean Buggia. In addition, one new faculty mentor, Dr. Lixin Dong, joined the Site this year. In retrospect, we felt that the ratio of returning over new teachers was a bit high this year; in the future (if our renewal proposal is funded), we plan to have about one third of the participants from the pool of returning teachers, so that we can maximize the number of teachers who benefit from this program.

3. 6-week Summer Institute.

• Orientation. There were several things new about the three-day orientation this year. First, it was conducted off campus, at the Kellogg Biological Station, which helped the teachers concentrate on the orientation activities. Second, TeachEngineering.org held a webinar for our participants, to provide an overview of the TeachEngineering digital depository program and how the publication process works. Third, returning teachers shared their stories on transitioning research experiences to curriculum and classroom practice, which was well received by both new and returning teachers.
• Research experiences and curriculum development activities. (See the Participants page for more details of each teacher's activities in Year 3)

4. Curriculum submission. During and following the Summer Institute, the teachers worked with the curriculum specialist, Leyf Starling on transitioning their research into curriculum. By the date of this report, most teachers have already submitted their developed lessons/activities to TeachEngineeirng.Org. For details, please see the Publications and Products section of the final report.

5. Professional activities. Our teachers demonstrated sharpened professional and leadership skills throughout and following their RET experiences. For example, they attended a number of conferences to disseminate their experiences and curriculum materials. Five participated in the NSF Engineering Education Awardees Conference in 2010 - 2012; Erin Bosch participated in the 2010 Motorola Innovation Generation Grantee Conference and presented at the 2011 National Science Teachers Association Conference; Wendy Johnson presented at the 2011 Michigan Science Teachers Association Conference, the 2012 AP Biology Leadership Academy, and the 1st Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology. In addition, they started to pursue more actively opportunities for their career development. For example, Lisa Wininger recently applied to the Einstein Fellowship Program of the Department of Energy.

6. Evaluation. Continuing our practice in the previous two years, a third-party evaluator conducted detailed surveys of participants, graduate students, and faculty mentors for Year 3 activities. The following provides quick summary of the findings from the evaluation report. The full evaluation report is available at the BITS RET Site website: http://www.egr.msu.edu/future-engineer/ret.