Research indicates that scientists and engineers can become successfully involved with reform efforts in a number of different capacities 

• For a comprehensive, schematic diagram compiled by the NSRC of roles for scientists and engineers to take, refer to “Scientist and Engineer Involvement Flier”
• Scientists and engineers can become involved with reform efforts to different degrees. The different levels of involvement range from a less time-intensive role communicating the need for reform and advocating certain positions to stakeholders, to the more time-intensive position of acting as a partner in education, where the scientist or engineer is involved in a sustained collaboration with students, educators or districts. In between these levels, a scientist or engineer can serve as a resource, providing guidance and advice directly to interested individuals without devoting the required time for a regularly occurring partnership commitment.  
  Bybee, R.W., and Morrow, C.A. Improving Science Education: The Role of Scientists.
• A sampling of roles that scientists and engineers can play spans the categories of source of expertise(science content resource, co-facilitator of science classroom modules, partner in professional development of science teachers, mentor or research advisor to students), source of connections and support (validator for the importance of learning science and mathematics, political advocate and supporter, link to community and business support, provider of lab experience or equipment, advisor with experience accessing funding sources), and role model for the accessibility and importance of science(champion of real world connections and value of science, career role model, interpreter of science
  • Evans, B. Finding Meaningful Roles for Scientists in Science Education Reform.Proceedings of the Australian-American Fulbright Symposium 2002: “Science Education in Partnership”. Concurrent with the IAU 213 Bioastronomy Conference Hamilton Island, Australia, July 8 – 12, 2002., p.23.1http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002seip.conf…23E 
• Scientists and engineers can direct outreach efforts toward assisting schools to better align their science programs to the NRC Standards. Scientists and engineer efforts will have a greater impact on student achievement in this respect if they contribute to the professional development of teachers rather than initiating an individual classroom outreach effort, since the knowledge transferred to teachers will reach a greater number of students than efforts in an isolated classroom environment
  • Moreno, N.P. K-12 Science Education Reform: A Primer for Scientists. Bioscience, 49. July 1999. Pg 569-576.