The nation's colleges and universities have intensified discussion and debate about the relationship between teaching and research (Boyer, 1990; Kennedy, 1990; AAHE, 1993). The institutional culture of nearly every university requires that faculty contribute by research, teaching, and service, but few institutions reward research and teaching equally, and fewer reward service at all. A central issue is that research has a wide range of external rewards (such as grants, international prestige, and meeting invitations), whereas teaching is rewarded externally or internally only rarely and sometimes by no one but appreciative students. Faculty members, therefore, routinely undervalue undergraduate teaching, including the teaching of future science teachers. Even more discouraging is that at many research universities, working with teachers in professional-development programs is not even valued as teaching, but as "service" to the community.

To increase professional rewards for scientists who are involved in professional development of teachers, universities must show that they value and reward their faculty members' participation. The following are examples of how universities have recognized the importance of closer connections between K-12 education and universities.

• The Department of Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Washington School of Medicine established a program that began by asking questions of educators about their needs and then designing a partnership that addressed those needs. Department members, with the encouragement and endorsement of the department chair, can become involved in professional-development activities for K-12 teachers. Because it looks at teachers' needs and then finds appropriate funding sources, the program has the potential to have a positive impact on education in the Seattle area. The department is also planning a course with teachers and faculty of the College of Education for elementary-school teacher preparation, a summer program with middle-school teachers, and a secondary-school teacher program involving specific topics.

• As a part of the academic senate's committee structure at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), a committee on community education was established in 1985. The committee is responsible for promoting educational activities for teachers and for informing the faculty of the importance of these activities and recommending how to improve them. The committee serves as a forum for discussing the continuity of courses and teaching in K-16 subjects. The impetus for the program is the recognition that as the K-12 system undergoes educational reform, it becomes more important than ever for college and university faculty to be aware of the changes. It might also be critically important for faculty to become involved in the decision-making processes so that the postsecondary institutions have some impact on the future directions of K-12 reform. The committee on community education has requested that faculty receive teaching credit, not service credit, for teaching professional-development courses for teachers. The University of California has discussed awarding points to faculty for the teaching of professional-development courses. The point system might be based on numbers of students taught and their level. (See Appendix E for more information about the UCI committee program.)

• At the University of Arizona, promotion and tenure guidelines for the faculty were revised in 1992 to define inservice education of teachers as teaching, rather than service, so that faculty participation could be better rewarded. The faculty of science also has approved special promotion and tenure guidelines for faculty who take a major role in K-12 teacher education. (These guidelines are included in Appendix E.)

University administrators can support programs in other ways. They can provide space and joint appointments, thereby allowing university staff to spend time in teaching or research and time in outreach programs. That would give staff an academic home; built-in contacts with faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers in their departments; academic credibility; and accessibility to scientific research.

Scientific professional societies have become more involved in science education. Nearly all professional societies have education as one of their stated goals. In the physical sciences, the American Chemical Society and the American Physical Society have special precollege-education committees and programs that have made substantial efforts to reach out to the precollege teaching community. The American Chemical Society has a separate section for precollege education. The American Physical Society has created a program with the American Association of Physics Teachers to link the professional development of physics teachers more closely with the physics research community.

The life-science community, however, has a wider diversity of professional organizations. Rather than having a single broadly encompassing organization, the life sciences have hundreds of smaller organizations. Most of the programmatic focus of life-science education programs has been on graduate and postgraduate education. In recent years, interest in K-12 education has increased dramatically, as evidenced by an increase in the number of precollege-education committees. Special symposia and workshops for teachers and students at national meetings are becoming more common. These can be an effective way to interest scientists in professional development and an efficient way for them to educate themselves about the issues. Some of the activities of professional societies, however, assume that scientists already know the best ways to become involved. Professional societies should offer workshops and symposia on science-education reform for scientists so that they can understand the needs, the opportunities, and the most productive ways to become involved.

Some societies (such as the American Society for Microbiology, the American Society of Human Genetics, and the American Society for Cell Biology) have begun to feature educational activities in their newsletters or monthly news journals; others (such as the Genetics Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science) have spun off separate education newsletters. Some (such as the American Physiological Society, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the American Society for Cell Biology) provide grants for teachers to work in research laboratories. The Society for Neuroscience has begun a collaboration with the National Association of Biology Teachers to develop teaching materials in neuroscience. Some societies (such as the American Society for Microbiology, the American Physiological Society, the American Chemical Society, and the American Institute of Physics) have hired staff to focus specifically on education issues.

The Genetics Society of America has several education programs. It occasionally includes education papers in its professional journal, Genetics, and disseminates information about outreach programs in a booklet titled GENeration and another titled Genetics in the Classroom. Similarly, the American Society for Cell Biology includes education articles in the essays section of its journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell. Scientists rarely read education journals and are more likely to read and learn about science education if articles about it are included in the specialized scientific journals. Science includes some articles on science education, and the AAAS Directorate for Education and Human Resources Programs publishes Science Education News eight times a year. If more-specialized journals published articles on science education and science-education research, artificial barriers between teaching and research might be lowered. At the same time, such publication would legitimize and give broader recognition to creative teaching. (Specific information about how to get in touch with scientific and science-education organizations is found in Appendix F.)

University administrators in research universities, comprehensive colleges, liberal-arts colleges, and community colleges should support K-12 teachers' professional development by

• Becoming involved in professional-development activities in local communities.

• Forming partnerships with schools and school districts and working with school administrators.

• Providing incentives for faculty to be involved in K-12 science education by recognizing faculty involvement in teacher professional development, rewards through promotion and tenure decisions, and recognition of professional development as a legitimate teaching activity of university science faculty.

• Providing on-campus facilities and support for K-12 teachers.

• Examining undergraduate science teaching to see whether their institution is preparing future science teachers effectively.

• Promoting cooperation between science departments and schools of education to improve science education at all levels.

• Participating in national science-education reform at all educational levels and facilitating the participation of their faculty.

Scientific professional societies can do a number of things to promote scientists' involvement in improving science-rich opportunities for K-12 teachers. They can

• Organize special workshops at annual meetings for scientists interested in K-12 education.

• Organize workshops and scientific sessions directed at teachers at annual meetings.

• Secure funding and coordinate summer research opportunities for teachers in members' research laboratories.

• Publicize and disseminate effective supplementary curricular materials.

• Encourage and welcome teacher membership in societies by reducing fees, publicizing meetings in science-education journals, and including teachers on education committees.

• Recognize and reward scientists for outstanding accomplishment in science education.

• Arrange for and subsidize speakers at teacher professional meetings, such as those of NABT, NSTA, and state science-teacher associations.

Professional societies should devote a section of scientific-research journals and newsletters to education articles and refereed education-research papers. Such a change in editorial policy will help to reduce the barriers between teaching and research.

Professional organizations that have memberships drawn from many disciplines or subdisciplines of biology (such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Biological Sciences) should increase their efforts to create networks among scientists committed to education reform. The networks could improve communication among biologists and between biologists and scientists in other disciplines.