(230b) In Search of the Active Site of Pmmo Enzyme: Partnership Between a K-12 Teacher, a Graduate K-12 Teaching Fellow and a Research Mentor

There are many sources available for the implementation of outreach at Louisiana Tech University and in the surrounding community. Within the College of Engineering and Science, Louisiana Tech has two NSF-funded programs: the GK-12 Creating Connections (NSF grant 0638730) program and the Nanoscience Educational Research Outreach (NERO) program's Research Experience for Teachers (RET) (NSF grant 0602029). These programs create an environment for graduate students, university faculty, and teachers in the surrounding community to (1) develop inquiry based science laboratories for K-12 levels, (2) expose K-12 teachers to nanotechnology principles, equipment, and research, and (3) engage K-12 teachers in specific research experiences spanning six weeks of the summer where they are mentored by university faculty.

In this work, we describe the partnership between a K-12 teacher (NanoResearcher), a GK-12 graduate student (Teaching Fellow) and a Louisiana Tech faculty member (Research Mentor) to engage in a research and education project for 6 weeks. Tanya Culligan (NanoResearcher), a biology teacher at Caddo Parish Magnet High School in Shreveport, Louisiana, was a participant in the NERO RET program in 2007 and returned in 2008. She pairs with Katherine Bearden (Teaching Fellow), a doctoral student in Chemical Engineering, and Dr. Daniela Mainardi (Research Mentor), an assistant professor of Chemical Engineering and Nanosystems Engineering at Louisiana Tech.

As with any new researcher to the field, Tanya is first introduced to the concepts of nanoscale science and the molecular modeling tools in the Mainardi group with guidance from the Teaching Fellow and the Research Mentor. Tanya is assigned the task of exploring the location of the active site of a very important enzyme: Particulate Methane Monooxygenase (pMMO), which relates to environmental bio-catalysis and involves atmospheric methane consumption (oxidation) for the production of fuel (methanol). With the guidance of the Research Mentor, the help of the Teaching Fellow, and the use of scientific software with great visualization capabilities, Tanya is driven through the different steps she needs to take to accomplish her goals. By the end of the 6-week program, the K-12 teacher develops a module, with the aid of her Research Mentor, to take and implement in her biology classes to explain the concept of the research she conducted on the modeling of enzymes. She also compiles and analyzes the results of her simulations and presents the data and conclusions in a formal presentation at the end of the summer RET program.