California State University, Sacramento, has been awarded a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation to help 20 middle school and high school teachers become education leaders in STEM, the university announced Monday.
CSUS will work with the Sacramento City, San Juan and Elk Grove school districts, as well as the Sacramento County Office of Education, and other partners.
The grant is called SacMAST-L, for “Sacramento Mathematics and Science Teacher Leaders.”
The program will utilize a California-led high school reform initiative called Linked Learning, an approach with "multiple elements that provide high school students with a rigorous academic core and hands-on real-world learning experiences that prepare students for both college and careers," as a report from the Center for American Progress describes it.
“The project will build a community of math and science teachers who can lead regional implementation of new K-12 STEM standards and model effective practices within the context of Linked Learning,” said Jenna Porter, an assistant professor in Sacramento State’s College of Education and the grant's principal investigator.
