SENS Research Foundation recognizes the challenges that will face high school biology teachers in the upcoming academic year. Through a generous grant from Dalio Philanthropies, SRF has launched the Research Integrated Science Education (RISE) Program, which will provide distance-friendly lessons supported by high quality video explanations, interactive student activities, and discussion-based slides.

The RISE Program will focus on integrating experimental design and data interpretation concepts into high school biology curriculum. The first set of lessons has been designed around one overarching module phenomenon but they have also been created with an eye to flexibility of use as well. All of the content has been developed to make it simple to incorporate specific videos, slides, and activities into your existing biology curriculum without needing to utilize the entire module. We envision the content being immediately adaptable to distance learning and hybrid learning paradigms and ultimately as a complement to hands-on laboratory exercises when full access to classrooms resumes.

The first module will introduce students to COVID-19 and explore how the seemingly disparate clinical manifestations of the disease can be explained by a single mechanism at a molecular level. A series of background videos, interactive activities, and discussion slides will prepare students to evaluate published COVID-19-related research publications.

The second module will explore the phenomenon of cellular senescence and its proposed role in aging and disease. The series of background videos, interactive activities, and discussion slides will help students to evaluate published senescence-related research publications.