The Biomedical Neurosciences Institute (BNI) has established a professional development program for teachers entitled Mentes Transformadoras (Transforming Minds; MT). MT adapts sciences contents to the Chilean national curriculum and thus support the teaching of science in the classroom through the Inquiry-Based Science Education (IBSE).
Through more than 35 workshops, BNI has impacted more than 1,000 teachers and 100,000 students. Nevertheless, teachers frequently discuss the need to have activities based on Chilean contexts. To meet this need, BNI has created the first educational resource that combines the inquiry methodology with research work of Chilean scientists, who carry our their projects in this country: Science made in Chile. With these materials, students identify with examples that they can find near their homes, such as the Chilean millenary larch, and with the life stories of these scientists, motivating them to learn about science in an interactive environment.
