The pilot program for the Dreyfus Polymer Expeditions for K-12 Teachers was an excellent opportunity for us to tryout our ideas and learn about the needs of the teachers for implementation of this program. We hosted ten teachers and trainers encompassing eight K-12 teachers (actually Middle and high school level for the pilot) plus two trainers in-training to assist with this effort. Most of the teachers were Polymer Ambassadors chosen for their experience with polymer topics and education efforts in this area, both past and future. This pilot program involved a weeklong training effort in how to do multimedia, plus continuous activities in developing educational components of the expeditions concept. The overall goal was to use polymer expeditions, or virtual field trips to polymer industry and research sites, as the focal point for implementing new modules suitable for middle and high school level students. This first, small scale effort was designed to test our materials and approach, and to allow us the opportunity to get extensive feed back from those familiar with polymers in this setting, as well as from several teachers new to the area. While we did not implement a full-scale "expedition," and did not intend to during this pilot effort, we did develop a number of modules that are extremely exciting and have excellent potential for being developed into lesson plans and drop-ins for K-12 science courses. These can be seen at: www.psrc.usm.edu/macrog/dreyfus and clicking on the "Dreyfus Project" button. Next summer�s efforts will involve many more teachers, but in small group settings. We plan on bringing in 10-12 K-12 teachers for each session that will encompass two weeks of education in polymer science and training in multimedia techniques. These two weeks sessions should result in very focused offerings encompassing detailed lesson plans, connections to the National Standards, and use of multimedia in appropriate ways to augment the overall "expedition" approach.

The attendees are listed at the website, and encompass a range of teacher backgrounds and skills. Active Polymer Ambassadors (those actively engaged in Polymer Education at the middle and high school levels) include Feidler, Goates, Harris, Higgins and Watkiss. This group was strong in background material in polymer science, and especially in organizing workshops and presenting demonstrations of science topics. They provide on ongoing opportunity for dissemination and feedback on the materials developed.

Eddie Spalding is a unique individual in having developed a "tech prep� offering in polymer science. He is located roughly ten miles from the campus of USM, and has been instrumental in implementing a polymer technology program at the high school level. His students are targeted at immediate employment, although we have recruited several of his students into our undergraduate program. We hope Eddie will be working with us next year as a trainer and contributor to a broad range of topics.

Laurie McDonald is a chemistry teacher at the Hattiesburg High School, and is very interested in implementing polymer science topics. In addition, she possesses extensive skills in multimedia education materials development. For example, she was the one who organized and implemented the first page of the Dreyfus report that lists participants and the links to their pages.

Pattie DePra and Ken Lee are college professors who were brought in to assist in the training and to help in the development of additional material for both teacher education and for student use. Pattie DePra was also involved in our NSF funded REU program for faculty at four year schools, and will be a continuous collaborator on a variety of projects. Ken Lee teaches at an HCBU in Jackson, Mississippi (Jackson State University) and indicated interest in long-term interactions on this project and other areas of science education. Both of these individuals were strong participants, supporting the activities of the K-12 teachers and developing additional materials during the one-week period. Both will be invited back next year to assist in the ongoing program.

The goals of this project are to train teachers in polymer science and multimedia education materials development, and based on this, to develop and implement modules on the web in the area of polymer science with emphasis on polymer expeditions. We were highly successful in achieving the first goal in our pilot program during the summer of 2000, but were less successful accomplishing the second goal.

Because of time constraints for the participants, and the desire to use this initial offering to test our ideas and materials in a very focused setting, we limited our first-year's experience to a single week. Part of the justification for this was that many of the participants, especially the Polymer Ambassadors, had prior commitments. Most also already had some past polymer knowledge and had already included polymer topics in their courses. All participants developed facility with the multimedia site development instruction material. In fact, as you can see from the results under the Dreyfus Project site, they each accomplished a significant start on a web site and/or made contributions to our site. Of course, some participants were more "web savvy" than others, but even the most computer challenged stated that she learned a great deal that was very helpful in participation in web-site development both here and at her home institution.

The program began on Sunday afternoon, and much to our surprise, the participants were willing and desirous of starting immediately. This led to advancing the schedule somewhat so that we could pursue the activities Sunday afternoon and evening. In fact, this has led us to modify our schedule for next year to include Sunday afternoon and evening sessions along with sending out background reading material and homework to the participants before they come to campus. Part of this homework will include selecting projects to work on as individuals or in groups. We will provide most of these topics. We already have significant background material that has not been incorporated into our current on-line offerings. This will reduce the data gathering process and help us integrate topics within broad frameworks of the various polymer expeditions under development or to be initiated this summer. Because of time constraints during the academic year, most participants will not be able to devote much effort to preparation and data gathering. Thus, it is imperative that do this before the sessions start.

While we had only limited success in achieving a unified expedition from the pilot program, the enthusiasm and hard work of the participants is indicated in the variety of material that was developed by these individuals. All had some form of "work in progress" that they wanted to put into multimedia format and make available over the internet. While this kept their interest and enthusiasm high for multimedia development, it led to fragmented topics on which one to several participants worked. It became clear that, if the expedition themes are to be developed during subsequent two-week sessions, extensive preliminary work must be done either by the participants or by the U.S.M. staff and instructors. That is, it is crucial that all or most of the material to be included be gathered in some format before the session starts. This material includes text and data, still pictures (with permissions to publish), ideas for videos and animations, and a general understanding of the broad area to be explored already organized in outline form. It may be that one way to achieve this is to select participants during the spring semester so that they can work some with their individual classes to acquire this information before the summer session starts. The alternative, which we will implement in any event, is to gather our own material in selected "expedition" areas that the participants can use to actually develop the expeditions. This will require a great deal more work on our part, but will facilitate the overall educational value of the two-week sessions. If we are to achieve both goals outlined above, it is clear that efficient use of time will be paramount. Thirteen or fourteen twelve-hour days are easily consumed in a combination of learning how to do multimedia development combined with learning the material that will be included in the final product.

Because of the need to work in small groups, both for the reasons stated above and because of the intense interaction required by the PSLC staff with the participants, we hope to spread the activities over the next two summers. This will allow us to have three two-week sessions during each summer with 8-10 participants per session. Our intent is to offer these six weeks of workshops during the middle portion of the summer. A key feedback from this year's participants was that some school districts get out late while others start early, drastically cutting into the available time during the summer. Add to this other teaching responsibilities and family obligations, and we will find it difficult to hold workshops during the first and last weeks of the summer. Instead, we will spread the two-week sessions out over 8 weeks, with a one-week period inserted between sessions for us to re-group and re-organize. Thus, our projected schedule will encompass a total of eight weeks, with two-week sessions each starting on the respective Saturdays of June 9, June 30 and July 21, broken up by one-week intervals. If this is acceptable to the granting agency, we will begin preparing for the announcement that should go out during Christmas break.