The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Teacher Education Collaborative (STEMTEC) is aimed at improving math and science teaching from kindergarten through college and is spearheaded by physics professor Morton Sternheim at the University of Massachusetts.
The project has received a $5 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant is one of three such awards made across the nation by the NSF each year.  STEMTEC participants include the University of Massachusetts, Hampshire, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges, Holyoke, and Greenfield Community Colleges and Springfield Technical College. Public schools in Springfield, Amherst, Holyoke, Hadley, Northampton, South Hadley, and Franklin County are also included.  Two Biology faculty have participated in the STEMTEC project, Dr. Joe Kunkel and Dr. Steve Brewer.
 
Joe Kunkel has used the principles learned in his STEMTEC experience to modify the Writing in Biology course he teaches to sophomores which emphasises the skills needed by biologists to communicate effectively, whether that be orally or in writing.
 
STEMTEC support was used by Steve Brewer to incorporate new technologies into the introductory biology laboratories.  One new laboratory uses the Biology WorkBench (URL: workbench.sdsc.edu), a web-based bioinformatics site which allows students to work with protein and nucleic acid sequence data. In the laboratory exercise, students begin with a short amino acid sequence, conduct a BLAST search to find similar sequences, perform an alignment to find conserved regions in the sequence, and then use a three-dimensional visualization package to 'color in' amino acids in the sequence to visualize the homologies. Students were able to rotate the molecule in three-dimensions and use various visualization techniques to allow them to formulate hypotheses as to why the amino acid sequences of certain regions were conserved.  Students worked in small groups and made presentations on their molecule and its conserved regions to the rest of the class.  Hypotheses they had developed were discussed.