For the past decade, high school physics teachers from New York state and beyond have been the eager consumers of a Cornell-based outreach program designed to make physics engaging and accessible.

As the program's funding period draws to a close, leaders are amazed at the results, including at last count more than 50,000 student uses of a "lending library" of physics labs since 2005-06.

"This is one of our most significant outcomes," said Cornell Institute for Physics Teachers (CIPT) director Julie Nucci. "NSF touts us as a flagship education and outreach program."

The National Science Foundation grant for Cornell's Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS) sunsets in 2011, and with it, the institute for physics teachers, which was supported under the auspices of the CNS seed funding.

"When we started CIPT in 2001 as the major educational outreach effort of CNS, we were determined to implement a program that would effectively support high school science teachers in their classrooms," said Robert Buhrman, senior vice provost for research and former director of CNS. "What has actually been accomplished under the leadership of first Monica Plisch and then Julie Nucci, working in close partnership with teachers from around the state and nation, has far exceeded our expectations. We are immensely proud of this program and of the deep impact it has had in providing support to teachers and experiential learning to so many students."

From the outset, the CIPT's mission was to help grow the so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) workforce by improving high school physics education and enhancing student interest in science.

To do so, CIPT has offered intensive training workshops and graduate courses for physics teachers. With this training came access to Cornell's lending library, a collection of nearly 40 complete physics labs that teachers could borrow free of charge.

Approximately 1,800 teachers worldwide have participated in more than 80 workshops, and more than 230 teachers have attended CIPT graduate courses since 2001. Over the years, graduate course participants were given about $208,000 in grants to purchase CIPT hardware for their classrooms.

The CIPT model has expanded to universities across the U.S. and to Puerto Rico and Singapore. Weill Cornell Medical College-Qatar has also sponsored CIPT workshops for physics teachers in Doha for the last three years.

A room in Clark Hall is home to the lending library, which has the look of an organized, but very tightly packed supply closet. Linda Clougherty, outreach program coordinator, keeps the lending library humming with the help of undergraduate student workers, and is responsible for taking orders from teachers and packing and shipping kits.

The "Stunt Car Challenge" is one of the library's most popular kits, Clougherty said. Created because students often struggle to understand the mathematics of projectile motion, the lab consists of a variable angle launcher with a photogate to measure a toy car's initial velocity. The "challenge" is for the students to calculate the car's trajectory, set up a ring that the car must jump through, and mark the car's landing spot.

The benefits of CIPT professional development have had a profound trickling effect across the state, said one physics teacher, Teresa Mann, of Oriskany High School.

"It is so effective that the teachers who do attend share their learning with other physics teachers, and we all are influenced," Mann said. "I think that CIPT is one of the most effective professional development opportunities available for teachers."

Nucci and others hope alternative funders can be identified so the CIPT can continue fulfilling its mission of making physics, and science in general, more engaging and, ultimately, to support the success of all students.