The three-pronged approach of the PRIMES educational program is designed to break down the barriers between students in different disciplines.

1. PRIMES students participate in interdisciplinary research teams throughout their studies in PRIMES. These research teams undertake interdisciplinary research in ecology under the close supervision of faculty members or postdocs directly involved with research in ecological science. This team-oriented educational activity is formalized in an educational component called Team REsearch in Ecology (TREE).

2. Existing standard courses for biology, ecology, mathematics, or statistics typically do not prepare students studying in these fields for interdisciplinary research. Consequently, there is a serious communication barrier between students from the quantitative sciences and those from the ecological sciences. Therefore, entering PRIMES student are required to take reciprocal gateway courses in relevant aspects of the underlying theory along with the standard core courses in their department

3. PRIMES students with a sufficient grounding in basic core material periodically enroll in a flexible module-based course called Advanced Quantitative Methods for Ecology (AQME). The object of AQME is to develop a range of techniques for model building and problem solving in ecology, as well as present aspects of underlying theory. Some modules are required of all PRIMES students while others are targeted at students studying specific kinds of research problems or with specific backgrounds.