BRIC (Bringing Research into the Classroom) is now PHAGES

Following the success of our “Bringing Research Into the Classroom (BRIC)” program at Montana Tech, PHAGES aims to continue this success with the following goals:

• Equip teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to provide high-quality bacteriophage-based research opportunities for students.
• Establish a sustainable pipeline for students into the sciences.
• Create self-sustaining satellite labs to ensure that students in underserved areas have access to local research opportunities. Select teacher leaders who have been involved with phage discovery in their classrooms for 4 or more years will serve as peer mentors to expand the project to their colleagues’ classrooms.

What is PHAGES?

Phagedigging Helping Acquire Genuine Experiences in Science provides training and mentoring to teacher leaders experienced with phage discovery in their classrooms and demonstrates a sustainable model for the >100 HHMI SEA-PHAGES faculty across the country to expand their reach to K-12 teachers and students.

What outcome will PHAGES have?

PHAGES teacher leaders gain the skills to independently prepare and deliver phagedigging for their own classrooms and mentor teacher colleagues to expand phagedigging to other classrooms, so that thousands of elementary through high school students can collect and test local soil and water samples and discover new bacteriophages. PHAGES students and teachers will engage in genuine research: citizen science bacteriophage discovery, and contribute to the known collection of bacteriophages.

The Bringing Research Into the Classroom (BRIC) project now known as PHAGES at Montana Tech in Butte, MT has been providing research experiences for Montana teachers and students since 2014. To date, BRIC/PHAGES has provided phage discovery to more than 8,000 students including some of Montana’s most remote communities. 

Since 2014 the BRIC Program has: