# Science Education Enabling Careers II (SEEC II)

> **NIH NIH R25** · UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM · 2023 · $263,334

## Abstract

For nearly 20 years, the UAB Center for Community OutReach Development (CORD) has conducted SEPA-
funded research that has greatly enhanced the number of minority students entering the pipeline to college
and biomedical careers, e.g., nearly all of CORD’s Summer Research Interns since 1998 (>300) have
completed/are completing college and most of them are continuing on to graduate biomedical research and/or
clinical training and careers. CORD’s programs that focused on high and middle school students have drawn
many minority students into biomedical careers, but a low percentage of minority students benefit from these
programs because far too many are already left behind academically in grades 4-6, due, at least in part, to a
significant drop in science grades between grades 4 and 6, a drop from which most students never recover. A
major contributor to this effect is that most grade 4-6 teachers in predominantly minority schools lack significant
formal training in science and often are not fully aware of the great opportunities offered by biomedical careers.
In SEEC II, CORD will deliver intensive inquiry-based science training to grade 4-6 teachers, providing them
with science content and hands-on science experiences that will afford their student both content and skills
that will make them excited about, and competitive for, the advanced courses needed to move into biomedical
research careers. SEEC II will also link teachers together across the elementary/middle school divide and bring
the teachers together with administrators and parents, who will experience firsthand the excitement that inquiry
learning brings and the significant advancement it provides in science and in reading and math. At monthly
meetings and large annual celebrations, the parents, teachers and administrators will learn about the
opportunities that biomedical careers can provide for the student who is well prepared. They will also consider
the financial and educational steps required to ensure that students have the ability to reach these professions.
SEEC II will also expand CORD’s middle school LabWorks and Summer Science Camps to include grade 4-5
students and provide the teachers with professional learning in informal settings. During summer training, in
small groups, the teachers will expand one of the inquiry-based science activities that they complete in the
training, and they will use these in their classrooms and communicate with the others in their group to perfect
these experiences in the school year. Finally, the teachers and grade 4-5 students will develop science and
engineering fair-type research projects with which they will compete both on the school level and at the annual
meeting. Thus, the students will share with their parents the excitement that science brings. The Intellectual
Merit of SEEC II will be to test a model to enhance grade 4-6 teacher development and vertical alignment,
providing science content, exposure to biomedical scientists and traini...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10597637
- **Project number:** 5R25GM132967-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM
- **Principal Investigator:** J. Michael Wyss
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $263,334
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-05-10 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10597637

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10597637, Science Education Enabling Careers II (SEEC II) (5R25GM132967-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-11 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10597637. Licensed CC0.

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