The Flinn Foundation of Phoenix, Arizona has recently awarded Northern Arizona University $517,100 for two major endeavors. The principle project involves K-8 science teacher education. The second part of the award will be used to enhance the 240-sect lecture hall in the new Biology/Biochemistry Building, slated to be opened in late fall 1999. The Department of Biological Sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences at Northern Arizona University are very grateful for this support.

Tradition and Innovation, the theme of our approaching centennial, aptly describes the position science education enjoys at NAU. Traditionally, NAU has been an established leader in teacher preparation for elementary and secondary schools. Through the Center for Excellence in Education, the Science and Math Learning Center, and good working relationships between faculty in education and the sciences, we have built a reputation for excellent teacher preparation with both pre-service and in-service professionals. The Biology Department is building upon that tradition of excellence via highly competitive funding for innovative undergraduate instruction and research. NAU recently received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant to further our leadership in this area by enhancing the training of secondary school biology and chemistry teachers. The HHMI grant propels us forward in undergraduate student research and opens up a new venue with respect to laboratory science distance education. In addition, NAU's a renewal of a Minority Student Development grant, funded by NIH, provides research opportunities and enhanced advising and counseling for minority student majors in the biomedical sciences. HHMI and MSD are funding professional development for faculty teaching the gatekeeper courses in both general education and the biomedical sciences; this support uniquely positions NAU to take a national lead in preparing future teachers.

Over the past decade, science and math education at the primary and secondary school levels in the United States have received increasing criticism. Various states, including Arizona, have begun to address this problem. In Arizona, teacher certification is longer be the automatic result of degree certification via universities and the state board, but rather will be based on proficiency exams in content areas and pedagogical expertise. For students, competence will be measured by tests during grades 2, 5, 8, and 12.

New approaches for training of both pre-service and in-service teachers of science, including biology, are necessary. NAU will provide a model program for biology teacher education, thus assuming a national leadership role in commitment to teacher preparation. With the support of the Flinn Foundation, we will put K-8 biology teacher education at the top of the pyramid of our scientific literacy initiatives.

The first phase of our Flinn Award program for K-8 teachers has brought three national experts to NAU to help us to clarify our goals during spring semester 1999. This workshop is helping to prepare us for a revision of our curriculum aimed at teacher preparation. A new three-credit course will be developed for science teacher education. this will be enhanced by a one-credit seminar for future elementary teachers. Working with professors teaching Biology 100, students will examine the professors' decisions about methodology: Why did I select this textbook? How do I put together my syllabus? What test design did I use and why? What discovery learning techniques am I employing, and how do they increase student learning? What parts of the content of this course are required mastery for future students in elementary schools and why?

In addition to exploring pedagogical questions, the seminar attached to Biology 100 will result in new content, additional teaching materials, and hands-on, discovery-based teaching practice. Not only would we expand future teachers' exposure to key scientific concepts and processes, we would help them to learn to teach those concepts and processes at the elementary level - with enthusiasm and confidence.

The second prong of the planning and launch processes is a workshop in which teachers from NAU and across Arizona will attend a three-day symposium on teaching at the elementary level in the spring of 2000. This symposium will provide teachers with a forum for expressing their own goals for student learning, while benefiting from the presence of six national experts delivering seminars on cutting-edge pedagogies in elementary science instruction. Professors and students involved in the gateway course will attend the symposium as part of their instruction.

Over the course of four years, Elementary Education majors turn their attention more and more from content to delivery. An intensive return to content is lacking in the senior year, as elementary education students prepare for student teaching. At this juncture, we will insert a new course in pedagogy for elementary school science with an emphasis on biology. A capstone of this sort is already offered for secondary school teachers, but the approaches and content of the new course will differ dramatically, based on audience. Units will include a variety of topics such as water, dinosaurs, recycling, and the oceans. The primary focus of the course will be to provide teachers with methods and equipment to teach exciting, discovery science at the elementary school level. In order to meet a statewide need, from both pre-service and in-service teachers, this course will be offered in the summer and during the school year.

In addition to the faculty (see appendix) already addressing teacher preparation in the Department of Biology, the Dean of the College has committed a new faculty line to further enhance the role of elementary school teacher preparation. This represents a significant expansion of Biology's commitment to teacher preparation.

Many of the courses mentioned here will be taught in a new state-of-the-art science facility dedicated to undergraduate research in Biology and Biochemistry. Most notably, Biology 100 will be taught in a lecture hall specially equipped for discovery learning. Tables for group work, flexible seating, and computer access for each pair of seats mean a $500,000 add-on to the state appropriation for the building and for which the College of Arts and Science is pursuing multiple sources of funding. The Flinn Foundation graciously provided significant funding to enhance the multi-media presentation and projection systems for the new lecture hall.