Thanks to a state grant, Northeastern will lead a new program aimed at improving middle-school science education.
The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education chose Northeastern to oversee the Greater North Shore Science Partnership (GNSSP), a three-year, nearly $750,000 program, funded through the Massachusetts Mathematics and Science Partnership Program.
Program partners will include the Lynn and Malden public schools; the University of Massachusetts, Boston; the Education Development Center; and Northeastern’s Center for STEM Education.
STEM (which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) provides professional development and support activities to middle-school science teachers, designed to help them improve students’ science educations.
Initiated and directed by Christos Zahopoulos—STEM’s executive director and a Northeastern professor jointly appointed in the areas of engineering and education—the GNSSP is an outgrowth of the North Shore Science Partnership (NSSP). Now in its third year, the NSSP has helped increase the number of highly qualified science teachers in Revere, Somerville, and Saugus.
Under the GNSSP, between thirty and forty middle-school science teachers, primarily from the Lynn and Malden public schools, will take two or three professional- development courses at Northeastern and UMass–Boston each year.
The training could impact more than five thousand students in Lynn and Malden every year.