pgEd is thrilled to embark on two new projects through grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program. pgEd has received an award for its ARC project: Building Awareness, Respect, and Confidence through Genetics. Under ARC, pgEd is developing new curriculum on genetics and identity, including modules on sex and gender, race and ancestry, intelligence and cognition, gene editing, and genetics and space. We’re also launching a traveling professional development workshop to partner with teachers in urban and rural communities to increase awareness and conversation about personal genetics in high schools and the broader community. We’ll be partnering with Brockton High School in Brockton MA as well as Elizabeth McMillan (pgEd summer institute alum) and Sanford Research’s Program for the Midwest Initiative in Science Exploration (PROMISE) to work with schools in South Dakota and the surrounding states. We’ll also be continuing our partnership with The Jackson Laboratory on their Teaching the Genome Generation (TtGG) professional development course for teachers that integrates molecular biology, ethics, and bioinformatics.
pgEd’s Director of Programs, Marnie Gelbart, enjoyed fantastic discussions (and learned a lot!) at SEPA’s annual SciEd conference in Rockville, Maryland on May 9-12. She reconnected with old friends, including Louisa Stark who runs the amazing Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah, and met many new people doing wonderful work in science and health education. New friends in genetics include the team from the University of Michigan & Michigan State’s MI SEPA project who are partnering with schools and communities in Detroit and Flint, and the University of Washington’s Genes, the Environment, and Me team who are working with schools and communities in Yakima Valley and throughout Washington state. Marnie presented a poster on pgEd’s new project and participated in a break-out session with Melissa Goldstein from the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy to discuss the president’s Precision Medicine Initiative and connect the various projects advancing awareness and genomic literacy.
The ARC and TtGG projects are supported by the Office Of The Director, National Institutes Of Health under Award Numbers R25OD021895 and R25OD020205. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.