July 15, 2010 | Middle school and high school students often want to know why they need to learn this or that.

UAMS’ Robert Burns, Ph.D., director of the UAMS Partners in Health Sciences Program (outreach to PreK-12 teachers), is happy to help teachers answer some of those questions.

On July 14, Burns hosted 47 teachers from northeastern Arkansas, giving his perspective about the educational opportunities at UAMS and the skills required.

In a lab in the Education II building, Burns, a professor in the Department of Neurobiology & Developmental Biology, presented human biological displays, including embryos, fetuses and samples of brain tissue, to engage teachers.

The visiting teachers were impressed.

“This is great for me,” said Diane Putman, a chemistry teacher at Jonesboro High School. “I will use it in my classroom. I can tell my students how chemistry is involved in some of these exhibits.”

“Dr. Burns did a wonderful job; all of those specimens and pictures and explanations are great,” said Linda Parten, a Hoxie High School foreign language teacher.

The Partners in Health Sciences Program began in 1991 at the request of then- UAMS Chancellor I. Dodd Wilson, M.D., and it has attracted almost $3 million in outside funding.

For example, in academic year 2009-2010 the program received $159,000 from three sources to present different workshops:

• “Healthy Hearts” for PreK-3 teachers, funded by the Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education of the AR Dept. of Human Services

• “Healthy Lungs” for middle school teachers, funded by the AR Department of Health and the Arkansas Cancer Coalition

• “Healthy Skin” for middle school teachers, funded by the Arkansas Cancer Coalition

Through the end of 2009, 19,757 participants received 72,144 hours of professional development in a variety of health science topics. Teachers and school nurses have participated from all 75 of the state’s counties. About 65 percent of the participants are from rural Arkansas.

In the last several years almost all of the program’s workshops have been held in local community settings where the participants live and work. As the only trainer in the program, Burns for several years has driven his pickup truck full of resource kits to offer the workshops in communities throughout Arkansas.

“This is an extremely rewarding outreach program because the teachers genuinely appreciate the resources we’re providing and the connection with the educational side of UAMS,” Burns said.

The program has resulted in four publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

The two-hour visit to UAMS on July 14 was organized by Debby Rogers, a science specialist at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. Funded largely by the Craighead Electric Cooperative in Jonesboro, the teachers spent three days visiting industries and institutions.

“UAMS has always been one of our top places to visit based on our surveys because UAMS is not just doctors and research scientists,” Rogers said. “There are hundreds of careers at UAMS.”