The Students Understanding eNergy (SUN) Project reports significant long-term effects on biology teacher knowledge and self-efficacy regarding biological energy transfer. Teachers use a hydrogen fuel cell and manipulatives to develop a model of energy transfer based on electrons moving in thermodynamically spontaneous reactions.

One goal of the NIH SEPA (Science Education Partnership Awards) program is to create partnerships among biomedical researchers, teachers and schools. The MSOE Center for BioMolecular Modeling (CBM) has leveraged the support from a series of SEPA awards to create a multifaceted outreach program that connects biomolecular researchers and their stories of active research with middle and high school teachers and the foundational concepts of chemistry and biology they teach. 3D printing is the enabling technology that supports this outreach program. For twenty years the CBM has pioneered the use of 3D printing to create physical models of proteins that engage teachers and students as active participants in the process of science, while at the same time allowing researchers to tell the story of their research project. Here we discuss the key components of our outreach program and how we've overcome challenges to sustaining the program for twenty years.

Students often find it challenging to create images of complex, abstract biological processes. Using modified storyboards, which contain predrawn images, students can visualize the process and anchor ideas from activities, labs, and lectures. Storyboards are useful in assessing students’ understanding of content in larger contexts. They enable students to use models to construct explanations, with evidence to support hypotheses – practices emphasized in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Storyboards provide an opportunity for performance assessment of students’ content knowledge against a backdrop of observing patterns, determining scale, and establishing relationships between structure and function – crosscutting concepts within the NGSS framework.

The MSOE Center for BioMolecular Modeling (CBM) is an instructional materials development laboratory. Founded on a core technology of 3D printing, the CBM creates accurate physical models of proteins, based on the atomic coordinates of solved structures. These models have proven to be powerful “tools of engagement” in our science education outreach programs targeted to students, educators and the general public. A physical model of a protein functions as an external representation of the “mental model” that is carried around in the head of a scientist. As an external representation of the researcher's mental model, the physical model is a tangible artifact that can be shared by the expert (researcher) and the novice (student, teacher, parents) as it stimulates meaningful conversations about science, between people of disparate backgrounds and levels of experience. Physical models of proteins are supplemented with other hands‐on, active learning instructional tools and featured in two new professional development programs for high school teachers and their students; (i) Genes, Genomes and Personalized Medicine, and (ii) Drugs, Drug Targets and You. These same tangible instructional tools are featured in a series of Science Cafés designed to communicate current advances in the biomolecular sciences to the general public.