The primary aim of Columbia University's Summer Research Program for Science Teachers is to provide New York metropolitan area secondary school science teachers with sustained hands-on experience in scientific research so they can better understand the practice of science, better transmit to their students and fellow teachers a feeling for its practice.  The program serves four major purposes:

• SCIENCE CONTENT: Teachers participate in an informal seminar on a topic of broad general interest led by Columbia faculty or a speaker from another of New York’s science-rich institutions.
• SCIENCE COMMUNICATION: Teachers describe their research to one another at regularly scheduled oral presentations or poster sessions.
• SCIENCE TEACHING: Teachers discuss common problems and exchange ideas on what works in the classroom.
• PEER COACHING: Second-year participants provide guidance to their first-year colleagues.

The Summer Research Program was founded in 1990 by Dr. Samuel C. Silverstein, Professor of Physiology in the Roy & Diana Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.