Our project aims to develop a program for the training and education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) of teachers from public and private schools in Puerto Rico that focus on the development of science and engineering practices. Despite the efforts at national and international level to increase the current level of training and participation of teachers in STEM, it has remained in superficial stages in Puerto Rico. Among the reasons we can highlight the lack of a university-level oriented curriculum that includes research as part of the theoretical and practical training for future teachers in these disciplines, the lack of alliances with universities that can offer support for the development and implementation of a curriculum emphasizing the process of doing science, and the challenges that are present for students and teachers to actively do STEM in classrooms and outside them.
To address this challenge, we propose an innovative combined approach that includes not only the traditional training of teachers in STEM fields, but one in which teachers and students are integrated and involved in researching a particular health problem that concerns everyone in the Puerto Rican society. Puerto Rico, due to its geographic location and its inherent climate, has one of the highest asthma rates per inhabitant worldwide (14.2%) and this situation increased after the passage of Hurricane María in 2017 and will be worsen by the actual COVID-19 pandemic. Our proposal reconciles the efforts and resources of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) in San Juan, the Molecular Sciences and Research Center (MSRC), the Puerto Rico Department of Health, and the Puerto Rico Department of Education (PRDE). The main goal is to, while generating awareness of an important health issue in Puerto Rico, increase the number of STEM teachers engaged in science practices that will enable them to teach science through research and take on an active role in the preparation of students to be incorporated in knowledge-based societies as a highly educated labor force.