Fred Hutch Science Education Partnership receives $1.35M grant

The Science Education Partnership (SEP) group at Fred Hutch Cancer Center received a $1.35 million, five-year grant earlier this year from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, to launch a new science education and training program called Reducing Inequities by Promoting Participatory Learning Experiences in Sciences (RIPPLES). The grant, from the Science Education Partnership Award program, will help support curriculum development, professional development for educators and engagement with American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students to foster equity in science education.

RIPPLES is designed to encourage middle and high school students, particularly those from underrepresented groups, to study science, technology, engineering and math; to help diversify the scientific workforce of the future; and to advance health disparities research. Jeanne Ting Chowning, PhD, associate vice president of Science Education and Community Partnerships in the Office of Education and Training, is the RIPPLES principal investigator. Vida Henderson, PhD, PharmD, assistant professor in the Cancer Prevention Program in the Health Sciences Division, and Regina Wu, associate director of SEP and RIPPLES program manager, are co-investigators.

Lessons to create meaningful change

Already this summer, the SEP group began developing the new RIPPLES curriculum, which will ultimately be publicly available online to teachers everywhere alongside SEP’s existing free, open-source curriculum. It will consist of two units, one for middle schoolers and another for high schoolers, that engage students in fundamental biological concepts and center health disparities.

Over approximately 10 lessons that span two to three weeks, students will examine the scientific, environmental and social contexts for health disparities, while learning about topics like mutation, human variation and evolution. Lessons that use real-world data will teach quantitative skills for analyzing factors that contribute to health disparities. The goal is not only to educate students about the reality of disparities but also to promote discussion about what causes disparities and what society can and should do to eliminate them.

“We want to connect the science to students’ lived worlds and look at how students draw on factual information and their own experiences to make claims about important ideas in science,” Chowning said. “We’re also very interested in fostering discussions of difficult issues in the classroom. We feel like this is really important work to be doing because how are we going to make change that is meaningful if we don’t understand what is at the root of these issues?”

The curriculum development process will take about three years, including drafting the content, piloting portions and soliciting feedback, field testing it in classrooms, ensuring the scientific accuracy and revising at multiple points along the way. Once the curriculum is finalized, the group will conduct a research study to evaluate its efficacy, looking at factors like student and teacher uptake of the ideas presented and teachers’ critical consciousness around what causes health inequity. 

Teaching — and learning from — the teachers

The second component of RIPPLES, professional development for educators, will dovetail with SEP’s longstanding summer program for middle and high school teachers. Each year, 20 Washington-state teachers attend a three-week program on the Fred Hutch campus in which they learn about SEP’s curriculum and kit loan program, and they engage in research alongside a Fred Hutch scientist-mentor. They also receive coaching on how to adapt Fred Hutch educational resources for use in their classroom. More than 620 teachers have participated since the program began in 1991.

RIPPLES’s focus on reducing inequities will be built into the summer program going forward so life science teachers can develop the knowledge, skills and confidence to teach fundamental biological principles and practices through the lens of health disparities.

In addition to the summer program, participating teachers will have multiple working sessions throughout the school year and can reach out to the SEP group with questions or to get support year-round. Each September, SEP alumni are invited to a fall kick-off event to book kits from the loan program and connect with peers. Educators can also arrange to bring classes into Fred Hutch’s training lab, specially designed to be safe for students under age 18.

“We continue supporting teachers who were here for the summer program as they go into the school year to make sure they are set up for success. They are so excited about planning what they’re going to do in the coming year and how to use our curriculum in their classrooms,”  Chowning said. “We also learn so much from them. They are involved in all aspects of SEP, and we really try to listen to what they need.”

Focus on inspiring and empowering AI/AN youth

Through RIPPLES, the SEP group will also develop and offer a new two-week summer program for American Indian/Alaska Native high school students to inspire and empower them to become the next generation of scientists, change makers and community health leaders. Details of the program are yet to be developed in partnership with community members.

“We hope to be able to start with a community convening so we can listen to what people would like to see in a program like this,”  Chowning said. 

The guiding idea is to introduce students to scientific research and community health in ways that are culturally relevant. For example, a culturally relevant research project might be one on cancer drugs developed from plant medicines traditional to AI/AN people or on a type of cancer that disproportionately affects AI/AN communities. Another important piece of the program will be mentoring from scientists and older students. 

“In all our programs for young people, we are trying to introduce them to a variety of careers, role models and mentors,” Chowning said. 

The AI/AN youth program, like all facets of RIPPLES, builds on Fred Hutch’s strong foundation of institutional support, scientific excellence and experience nurturing tomorrow’s biomedical researchers and scientifically literate citizens. Whether they are bound for a career in science or not, every student will be a user of healthcare systems and can benefit from seeing the importance of science and understanding the social determinants of health. For underrepresented groups in particular, the RIPPLES team hopes to be part of an ongoing shift toward scientific institutions that are more welcoming and more trustworthy, made up of researchers and staff who better reflect the diversity of our world.

Learn more about the Science Education Partnership.

SEP’s work is made possible in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH): RIPPLES (R25GM154358), a Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), and Pathways to Cancer Research (R25CA221770), a Youth Enjoy Science Award (YES/CURE), from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the SEP and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIGMS, NCI or NIH.