CREST (Connecting Researchers, Educators and Students)

CREST is an NSF-CCLI project in which researchers, undergraduate educators and undergraduate students work together to explore a research topic and create educational materials for use in the undergraduate classroom. This program is a spin-off of the highly successful SMART Team program, in which high school students work with researcher to create a physical model of a protein being studied in the research lab; and the PALM Project, in which ancillary educational materials (animations, illustrations, Jmol tutorials, paper bioinformatics and toober folding activities) were created to supplement accurate 3D models of proteins.

CREST Partners

The CREST program focuses on local partnerships, with a goal of developing a community of researchers, educators and students all focused on the same project. Partnering institutions include Alverno College, Concordia University Wisconsin, Marquette University, Mt. Mary College, UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee.

CREST Activities

Undergraduate students interact with a research lab to understand the focus of research in the laboratory. Students then design a model of the protein being investigated in the lab; a physical model of the protein is then built using 3D printing technology. The students then work closely with an undergraduate educator to develop ancillary educational materials, so that their protein model can be incorporated in the undergraduate classroom. An important component of these materials is the incorporation of 'how we know what we know' - or the experiments that were done to elucidate the findings conveyed in the activities - so that students in the classroom see science not merely as a collection of facts collected in their textbook.