SEATTLE — A trip to the forefront of scientific research revealed to North Kitsap High School’s Polaris science teacher Kathleen Pavlich just how important her job is.

She and about two dozen other public schools science teachers from Washington state and beyond were given the opportunity to visit the scientific front as a part of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s Science Education Partnership in July.

Spending a part of their vacation in “summer school,” the educators stepped into students’ shoes for a two-week blitz of knowledge, working beside scientists at the center and several other partner sites throughout Seattle.

“I was cutting out genes and splicing them into things … it was really exciting,” Pavlich said of her hands-on experience. “It was a great reminder of what it is to be like to be a student and to be plopped into this new world that you haven’t experienced.”

The SEP program, now in its 16th year, provides groups of teachers access to real world, cutting edge lab environments, allowing them the opportunity to hone their lab techniques and teaching strategies, said Kristen Woodward, media relations manager for the Hutchinson Center.

The two-week session was split down the middle between lab time — working one-on-one with scientists on research and projects — and reflection time — working in the center’s teaching laboratory, focusing on effective ways to use what they’d learned in the classroom and in refining curricula for the coming school year.

“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, director of the Hutchinson Center’s SEP program.

As an enhancement to the knowledge that Pavlich will take back to her North Kitsap classroom, she will also have a few of the center’s surplus chemicals and tools. And the SEP’s science-kit loan program, which is available on an ongoing basis to all teachers who participate in the yearlong program, will allow her to bring back an even bigger piece of the lab.

The kits contain all the equipment necessary for experiments in such areas as DNA gel electrophoresis, bacterial transformation and fruit-fly genetics, and they are the “real thing … not kids toys,” Hutchison noted.

“We have to get as much techology into the hands of kids as we can, we’ve got schools that have been designed for a world that is changing now,” Pavlich said of what she learned from seeing the latest in lab technology. “We have to develop adaptable learners, kids have got to be flexible. They have to learn how to learn and we, as teachers, have to learn how to help them to think outside of the box.”

Outside of the scientific and instructional boxes, Pavlich said she also witnessed valuable lessons in teamwork and the ability of a lab full of caring hearts during her time spent at the Fred Hutchinson cancer research lab.

“I felt in awe of human beings that we can tackle these things and with dedication and preparation, a little bit of luck and lot of humor so much can be accomplished,” Pavlich said. “It was really heart warming and exciting.”