The mission of BioEYES is to foster enthusiasm for science by offering students opportunities to explore life science through real world applications using a hands-on approach to learning.

In the Classroom

The goal of our classroom units is to teach conceptual understanding of life science content and processing skills while exciting children to the thrill of scientific discovery. When children are appointed as scientists, they participate in a fun exercise that breaks down stereotypes about both science and scientists (e.g. scientists are “out of touch with society” or are only stoic middle age males who have no fun). This is stimulating and educational for both the teacher and students. Through our program's services, we are impacting future scientists and doctors by educating these young citizens to think critically and scientifically.

We aim to improve informal science education experiences beyond the classroom experiments by providing teachers with the training, resources, and support to conduct and develop their own curricula.

Objectives

Local and national objectives of the current program are:

• To continue bringing live zebrafish experiments into 2nd-12th grade classrooms

• To pilot new environmental science units to middle and high school classrooms

• To design and develop teacher resources to accompany all activities

• To train all grade cluster teachers (elementary, middle and high school) to bring these creative science units into their classrooms with either a guided or a more autonomous capability

• To host high school interns in our after school and summer laboratory programs, fostering independent research projects

• To help support other universities interested in adopting BioEYES to serve their local schools