Creating Enthusiasm for Science in the High School Classroom

High school teachers are increasingly concerned with sparking and maintaining student interest in science, particularly as classroom laboratory activities have grown stale due to their age.A limited number of high school biology, chemistry and physics teachers were invited to a one week pilot program at the University of Arkansas, designed to introduce the teachers to science and engineering experiments and create enthusiasm for science.The format for the program included: An introduction of the topic with background; Experimentation by teachers in small groups, led by the coordinator; Discussion with applications; Experimentation with teachers leading the exercise; and, Experiment/program evaluation.This paper presents results from the program as carried out in the summer of 2006.