Issaquah High School teacher Lena Jones is one of about 30 science teachers from Washington who will be spending part of their vacation working beside scientists in research laboratories at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and several other partner sites throughout Seattle.

The summer workshop, which runs July 13-29, will host teachers from nearly 20 communities throughout the state.

“Our goal is for teachers to bring back what they learn over the summer to help jump-start their students’ knowledge of bioscience and research and perhaps kindle their interest in jobs or careers in science,” said Nancy Hutchison, Ph.D., director of the Hutchinson Center’s Science Education Partnership.

Working in labs at the Hutchinson Center and partnering local academic-research institutions and biotechnology firms, this year’s cadre of teachers will begin as the students, learning concepts and techniques, then they join the research scientists in the labs before shifting to work on effective transfer to the classroom.

After a jumpstart session to learn laboratory basics, the teachers will spend about half of their time working one-on-one with a scientist-mentor in a research laboratory on projects tailored to their interests.

Lab work over the past several years has focused on such topics as protein structure, stem cells, gene regulation, yeast genetics and fruit-fly development.