About LEADERS

Leadership for Educators: Academy for Driving Economic Revitalization in Science (LEADERS), a program funded by the National Science Foundation, is a mathematics and science partnership that gathers and merges the expertise of four essential entities in the economic revitalization of the Great Lakes Region—K-12 school districts, higher education, the renewable energy industry, and informal science education sites. The core partners  of the LEADERS partnership share a vision of student-centered education that knits community economic growth with science education.

The Goal

The goal of LEADERS is to improve science education by making it relevant to students through
the incorporation of Project-Based Science (PBS) that is linked to the renewable energies industry
and its environmental impacts, which is becoming a vital element in the economic development of the
Great Lakes Region.

Intellectual Merit

The intellectual merit of the LEADERS program to improve science education by making it relevant to students through the incorporation of PBS that is linked to the renewable energies industry and its environmental impacts, we can revolutionize the way a community views and provides education. Based on theory and practice, LEADERS moves K-12 science education from the classroom to the workplace by transforming science theory and classroom experiences that might be fundamental to science needed for science-related careers that are vital to the economic redevelopment of a community. LEADERS links national science standards with science practitioners’ expected skill sets resulting in K­12 science lessons that are not only challenging but also relevant.

Broader Impacts

Linking PBS to local economic development in the Great Lakes Region challenges the current paradigm that teachers
simply follow state and national standards. The LEADERS paradigm brings the K-12 schools into the equation that
calculates success for our region’s economy and provides a blueprint for other regions across the nation, with other science and technology-based economic growth potential, to make K-12 teachers and schools the producers of knowledge and contributors to economic redevelopment rather than consumers of knowledge and recipients of the economy.

 

The outcomes for LEADERS are the following:

1) Develop a cadre of effective teacher leaders who transform science education by linking science education by linking science content with emerging science-based industries in the Great Lakes Region.

2) Increase the number of teachers in partnering districts who have strong content, pedagogy, and leadership skills and knowledge.

3) Transform existing K-12 science courses to rigorous and relevant science courses through PBS.

4) Prepare K-12 students who can meet science and mathematics achievement standards and who become interested in science and technical careers.

5) Develop community science education networks that collaborate through the development and implementation of advanced or improved science courses.