The iPlant Collaborative (iPC) is developing a national center to provide the world with cyberinfrastructure tools to address “grand challenge” questions in plant biology, ranging from ecosystems to molecules. The BIO5 Institute at The University of Arizona is leading the Collaborative in which plant scientists, computer scientists, and information management experts will 1) identify the grand challenge research questions in Plant Science, 2) develop and build the supporting cyberinfrastructure, and 3) educate the next generation of students to work on multidisciplinary projects in plant biology that require computational thinking. 

iPC offers an unprecedented opportunity to involve educators in 21st century biological and computational education and research. In the first summer, we are inviting high school biology, math, and technology/computer science teachers to spend 4 weeks immersed in cutting-edge plant science research. In coming years, the program will be expanded to middle and elementary teachers.

This summer, teachers will:

• Participate in computational plant biology research* as a member of a multidisciplinary team.

• Learn about plant biology and related mathematics and Computational Thinking topics.

• Review and advise on curriculum materials to integrate computational plant biology into classrooms.

• Plan how to disseminate information and discoveries within schools.

• Use the latest technology to interact and share discoveries during and after the program.

Biology, mathematics, or computer science teachers may apply individually or as a team from the same school or district. Teachers receive stipends, but housing is not provided.

* What is computational plant biology research? Research that requires computational approaches:

• Genome projects depend on and drive advances in sequence analysis algorithms.

• Scientists use sophisticated data mining algorithms to search scientific databases daily.

• A plethora of new 2- and 3-D imaging software tools are invaluable for studying cells, whole organisms, and ecosystems.

• Biologists use mathematical models to understand the complexity of gene expression and protein networks, population dynamics, and environmental processes.