Join our collaborative team by participating in a professional development institute

Next Institute dates: July 27 through July 31, 2026

PD Flyer

These experiences are designed to provide teachers with the scientific knowledge and technical skills necessary to confidently guide their students through the classroom, field, laboratory, and informatics components of the ToxinLab unit. Led by our team of scientists, these interactive experiences begin with summer research institutes hosted in our newly renovated biosciences lab in Ventura Harbor, CA. They are followed by webinars from agency partners, technical workshops, learning community meetings, and other opportunities that are scheduled at convenient times throughout the school year.
 

Project participants are expected to:
  • Attend all research institute sessions and participate in all session activities, which may require individual or group work during evening breaks
  • Attend all project webinars, technical workshops, and other meetings scheduled during the school year
  • Implement the ToxinLab unit in a high school science course
  • Complete and administer all project-related evaluations and assessments
    • Important note: As a project participant, you will contribute to a carefully designed research study that examines the extent to which different aspects of the ToxinLab PD and classroom experience influence your teaching and your students’ learning. The findings of the project research study will be published in a peer reviewed journal to inform the educational community about instructional strategies and unit design elements that help students experience science as it is practiced in professional research settings.

Upon completion of PD institutes, teachers will receive a comprehensive suite of classroom materials free-of-charge. These materials will undergo revisions based on feedback obtained from teachers after they conduct implementation trials of the unit in their science classrooms.

Our approach to unit design supports a variety of instructional strategies and provides the flexibility necessary for teachers to gradually establish a classroom environment that supports rich student collaborations and three-dimensional learning.

The highly interdisciplinary scope of the ToxinLab experience makes it suitable for implementation in a variety of life science courses, including Career Technical Education pathway courses and other specialized coursework.

Teacher participants are eligible to reserve the equipment and supplies needed to support the hands-on field and laboratory work that students will conduct during the unit. Equipment loans can be reserved through an online reservation system managed by our team. Teachers selected for acceptance will receive instructions on how to access the system during summer research institutes.

Throughout the ToxinLab unit, students will make extensive use of authoritative public databases, web-based data visualization tools, and other online resources. Implementation of the unit therefore requires a stable Internet connection and access to laptop or desktop computers at your school.

Applicants must currently be teaching a science course at a U.S. high school accredited by a state department of education or by a regional accrediting agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Apply Here     Login Here