Why do your fingers turn blue when they're cold? Words like "oxygenation" and "hemoglobin" might make a sixth-grader lose interest -- unless experiments with red dye and an arm cuff made the concepts come alive.

Ten Cornell graduate students will spend the summer and the upcoming school year helping middle school and high school teachers in rural outlying districts teach science in fun, innovative ways, supported by a five-year, $3 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to Cornell. The researchers will target schools that "lack resources and do not currently benefit from extensive outreach efforts from universities," according to the project proposal.

The program will allow the graduate fellows to make the "critical transition from student to scientist," the proposal continues, by creating outreach materials related to their own research that make sense to both teachers and young students.

"This grant will provide our graduate fellows an unusual opportunity to learn to communicate science concepts more effectively," said principal investigator Michael Shuler, the James M. and Marsha McCormick Chair of Biomedical Engineering. "We expect that this process will enrich the education of the graduate fellows, the teachers, and middle school and high school students."

In July, the fellows and their advisers will begin working with teachers in Binghamton, Elmira, Trumansburg, Groton, South Seneca, Newark Valley and Dryden developing inquiry-driven science education activities for the upcoming school year. Summer work will include a small research project for the teachers.

The project will also help teachers focus on interdisciplinary ways of teaching science, moving away from the traditional hard lines drawn between such fields as chemistry, physics and biology.

Project leaders include Shuler, and co-PIs Chris B. Shaffer, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and Shivaun Archer, senior lecturer in biomedical engineering. The participating graduate students are: Vishal Tandon, Jeisa Pelet, John Nguyen, Evan Spiegel, Luke Landherr, John Huynh, Jeff Ballyns, Philip Buskohl, Alyse Portnoff and Jennifer Weiser.