Precollege science education in the United States is not what it could, and should, be. Major changes are being made in the way science is taught, but delivering those changes to thousands of schools is an enormous task. Scientific societies are a major resource; they can organize and train member-volunteers to help teachers bring "real" science to the classroom. The Microscopy Society of America has become part of the effort with Project MICRO (Microscopy In Curriculum - Research Outreach). MICRO is putting MSA members, teaching materials, and microscopes in middle school classrooms nationwide. The idea began in '93, but it has taken a lot of time and effort to implement. MSA's early decision to collaborate with experienced science educators at the Lawrence Hall of Science of the University of California at Berkeley was a wise one; their educational materials have a well-earned national reputation for excellence. The first phase of MICRO was completed in July '98 with the publication of a teacher's manual, Microscopic Explorations in the LHS GEMS (Great Explorations in Math and Science [http://www.lhs.berkeley.edu/GEMS/GEMS.html ] series. It supports the MSA/MICRO effort to get microscopist-volunteers into classrooms nationwide; 12.000 copies have been sold since 1998, and its fourth revised reprinting was in 2007. A description of the collaboration between MSA and the LHS that produced Microscopic Explorations appears in the online journal Cell Biology Education [http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/2/1/25]..
Where do we go from here? MICRO isn't just a manual. Publishing a GEMS guide brings the excitement of the microworld into thousands of classrooms Yes, thousands; 7000 copies have been sold since its publication in 1998. And when it's possible to get a microscopist-volunteer into the classroom to help present the material, much can be accomplished. The availability of volunteers encourages hesitant teachers to use microscopy. Microscopist-volunteers take the enthusiasm generated by the manual content down many lines of inquiry, to be determined by the needs of the classes and the skills of the volunteers.
MICRO has gained an unexpected major benefit from its association with the LHS. The main problem faced by other scientific societies that have begun outreach programs has been national support of training, both for teachers and volunteers. The LHS/GEMS program is so successful that they've outgrown their ability to provide enough in-house trainers to meet the demand. So in the period since MICRO's inception, a highly trained category of teacher-trainer, "GEMS Associates" has been developed. There now are hundreds of them, all over the country. Geographic coverage is still spotty, but the numbers are growing rapidly. GEMS Associates can help MSA's local societies organize programs, and in areas that aren't served by participating local societies they can invite individual microscopist-volunteers to attend GEMS workshops and then help them find a teacher to work with.
MSA supports organized volunteer programs through its network of thirty Local Affiliate Societies [http://www.MSA.microscopy.com/MSALAS/LASInfo.html]. Saint Paul was one of the manual test sites, and volunteers from the Minnesota Microscopy Society [http://www.mnmicroscopy.com/ProjectMicro/Welcome.html] celebrated the tenth year of a very successful outreach in 2006. Although the Ithaca, NY area doesn't have a MSA local society, they also have a ten year old MICRO program, sponsored by the Cornell Materials Science Center An Arizona program is active in Tucson, and the New England society has programs in the Boston area and in Burlington, Vermont. You'll find an address list for these programs elsewhere in this site.
Publication of Microscopic Explorations is the endpoint of one process, but it's also the real beginning of MICRO. Will you be a MICRO volunteer? It would take far too much space here to provide the reasons that you're needed; the National Academy of Sciences [http://www.nas.edu/rise] has compiled them all on an excellent website. The testing imposed by "No Child Left Behind" places new demands on teachers who will need help in teaching science. The next few years will be exciting, productive, and rewarding!