The goal of the three-year Science Education Enrichment Program is to provide 720 Puerto Ricans, six to fourteen years of age, with exploratory learning opportunities to observe, judge, and value scientific experiences. The program will be administered by the Agricultural Extension Service of the University of Puerto Rico. The 4-H curriculum will be strengthened by incorporating interactive learning in six science components: Composting as a Means to Conserve the Environment: The Role of Soil and Water in Protecting Life; Food Discoveries: Starchy (Farinaceous) Vegetables: From Field to Market; Getting to Know about Insects; and Hurricanes and Earthquakes: Events Requiring Disaster Mitigation. Extension Specialists in the subject matter and a research scientist from the Experiment Station will supervise groups of 10-20 children at 63 sites in sessions lasting from six months to a year. Trained volunteers and teen leaders will also participate. A distinguished group of external advisors will serve on an Advisory Committee to provide recommendations on scientific accuracy and future development. Three implementation phases ate planned. In Phase I a draft of a unique Puerto Rican science curriculum model for the Extension Service will be prepared. The skills and knowledge of component directors will be enhanced through collaboration with local and mainland groups to leverage resources for special training on exploratory approaches to learning science. In Phase II the curriculum will be tested and refined. Resources will be mobilized for exploratory science activities. A pilot session will be held for 80 youth. During Phase III all components will be operational. Approximately 640 youth will participate in 58 science session. A dissemination plan will allow for the curriculum materials to be distributed to groups in Puerto Rico and the mainland. The current level of effort will be continued and plans will be made for expansion to other sites. Institutional commitments to the development of this project include an in-kind contribution amounting to approximately 22 percent of the total project amount. In addition to creating an interest in science, the outcomes of the program will seek to build self confidence in science exploration, promote critical thinking, and develop knowledge in youth about career options in the agricultural sciences.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Oscar Muniz-TorresYamil QuijanoAgenol GonzalezPedro VelezOsvaldo Cotte
How do we know the distance to a star? How do we know what a star is made of? How do we know how fast an object is moving? These questions are addressed in this 1,488 square foot permanent exhibit which emphasizes astronomical spectroscopy - the detailed analysis of light from astronomical objects. This interactive, bilingual (English/Spanish) exhibit will demonstrate different applications of spectroscopy that provide insight into the universe, and will provide opportunities for students, teachers, parents, and the general public to learn about the universe. Bilingual ancillary materials will be produced: pre- and post-visit materials for school visitors; a "Life at an Observatory" ten-minute orientation/information video to be shown at the visitor center. Target audiences are students in grades K-12, and general visitors.
The University of Texas at Austin requests $399,341 to expand the current Universo translations of StarDate into Spanish to more culturally relevant programs for a growing Hispanic audience. Plans include creation of longer programs with a different format for Hispanic Heritage Month for 1998-2000 and creation of complimentary collateral materials for distribution to 200 Spanish- language radio stations. Programs will also be distributed to 1,650 classrooms. A teacher's guide for using Universo in the classroom will be developed in English with activities available in both English and Spanish. A parent's guide to Universo/StarDate will also be produced to encourage parents to get involved in skywatching activities.
The Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, the Interdisciplinary Center for Coastal Studies, New York Botanical Garden, Puerto Rico Youth at Risk, Boy Scouts, and others implemented a citizen science program for age 12 and older. This project targeted local residents, visitors to Hacienda La Esperanza Reserve, and members of community environmental projects on topics including archeology and human impacts on local ecosystems; conservation and restoration of wetlands; and shoreline and costal processes.
This planning grant is designed to engage urban and rural families in science learning while piloting curriculum development and implementation that incorporates both Native and Western epistemologies. Physical, earth, and space science content is juxtaposed with indigenous culture, stories, language and epistemology in after-school programs and teacher training. Project partners include the Dakota Science Center, Fort Berthold Community College, and Sitting Bull College. The Native American tribes represented in this initiative involve partnerships between the Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara. The primary project deliverables include a culturally responsive Beyond Earth Moon Module, teacher training workshops, and a project website. The curriculum module introduces students to the moon's appearance, phases, and positions in the sky using the Night Sky Planetarium Experience Station during programs at the Boys and Girls Club (Ft. Berthold Community College), Night Lights Afterschool program (Sitting Bull Community College), and Valley Middle School (UND and Dakota Science Center). Students also explore core concepts underlying the moon's phases and eclipses using the interactive Nature Experience Station before engaging in the culminating Mission Challenge activity in which they apply their knowledge to problem solving situations and projects. Fifteen pre-service and in-service teachers participate in professional development workshops, while approximately 300 urban and rural Native youth and family members participate in community programs. A mixed-methods evaluation examines the impact of Western and Native science on the learning of youth and families and their understanding of core concepts of science in a culturally responsive environment. The formative evaluation addresses collaboration, development, and implementation of the project using surveys and interviews to document participant progress and obtain input. The summative evaluation examines learning outcomes and partnerships through interviews and observations. Presentations at national conferences, journal publications, and outreach to teachers in the North Dakota Public School System are elements of the project's comprehensive dissemination plan. The project findings may reveal impacts on participants' interest and understanding of connections between Native and Western science, while also assessing the potential for model replication in similar locales around the country.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This education project is a time sensitive opportunity related to the March 9, 2016 Total Solar Eclipse occurring in a remote part of the world located in Waleia in the Federated States of Micronesia, a U.S. affiliated Pacific Island nation. The path of totality is only 100 miles wide and passes through only a few Pacific Island nations ending in Hawaii. This project uses this unique phenomenon to educate a large US and international audience about solar science using multi-platforms with integrated video, social media, and public programs. Project deliverables include the production of a broadcast of the eclipse live from Waleia in the Federated States of Micronesia on March 9, 2016 making it accessible to hundreds of countries and millions of people around the world via satellite and live streaming on the Internet. Additional deliverables include on-site educational programs at science centers and planetariums as well as media resources for long-term use. These resources will enhance the interest and preparedness for additional public engagement when the 2017 eclipse occurs in the U.S. Making new research understandable and accessible to the public is an important activity of the U.S. research enterprise. NSF is making a substantial investment in solar physics research by funding the construction of the world's largest solar telescope, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope which is slated to begin operations in late 2019 and operated by the National Solar Observatory. This new facility will revolutionize researchers' capability to study the Sun and its magnetic fields. This education project leverages that investment with a major public engagement opportunity that has the potential for reaching millions of students, teachers, and the public both in the U.S. and worldwide through the Internet.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
ExploratoriumRobert SemperNicole MinorRobyn Higdon
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This research project leverages ongoing longitudinal research to investigate whether, and if so how, youth from ages 10 to 15 in a diverse, under-resourced urban community become interested and engaged in STEM. The project addresses a global issue; fewer youth choose to major in scientific fields or take science coursework at high school or university levels. These declining numbers result in fewer STEM professionals and fewer scientifically literate citizens who are able to function successfully in an increasingly scientific and technological society. These declines are observed for youth as a whole, but are most pronounced for girls and particular non-white ethnic minorities. Data collected from youth in this community of study, including non-white ethnic minorities, mirrors this decline. NSF funding will support a five-year systematic and systemic process in which project researchers work collaboratively with existing informal and formal educational partners (e.g., museums, libraries, afterschool providers, schools) to develop sets of customized, connected, and coordinated learning interventions, in and out of school, for youth with different backgrounds, needs, and interests, all with the goal of averting or dampening this decline of STEM interest and participation during early adolescence. In addition to new research and community STEM networks, this project will result in a Community Toolkit that includes research instruments and documentation of network-building strategies for use by other researchers and practitioners nationally and internationally. This mixed methods exploratory study has two distinct but interrelated populations - youth and educators from across informal and formal institutions. To develop a clearer understanding of the factors that influence youths' STEM interest development over time, particularly among three youth STEM Interest Profiles identified in a secondary analysis (1-Dislike Math, 2-Like all STEM, 3-Dislike all STEM), the design combines surveys with in-depth interviews and observations. To study educators and institutions, researchers will combine interviews, focus groups, and observations to better understand factors that influence community-wide, data-driven approaches to supporting youth interest development. Research will be conducted in three phases with the goal of community-level change in youth STEM interest and participation. In Phase 1 (Years 1 & 2) four educational partners will develop interventions for a 6th and 7th grade youth cohort that will be iteratively refined through a design-based approach. Educational partners and researchers will meet to review and discuss interest and participation data and use these data to select content, as well as plan activities and strategies within their programs (using a simplified form of conjecture mapping). By Phase 2 (Years 3 & 4) four additional partners will be included, more closely modeling the complex system of the community. With support from researchers support and existing partners, new educational partners will similarly review and discuss data, using these to select content, as well as plan activities consistent with program goals and strategies. Additional interventions will be implemented by the new partners and further assessed and refined with a new 6th and 7th grade cohort, along with the existing interventions of the first four partners. In Phase 3 (Year 5) data will be collected on pre-post community-level changes in STEM interest and participation and the perceived effectiveness of this approach for youth. These data will inform future studies.
Serial Passage: AIDS, Race, and Culture. is a 3-4 hour documentary film series and curriculum enhancement that examines the process of scientific inquiry in the development of the serial passage/contaminated needle theory of the origin of HIV/AIDS as well as the disproportionate impact of the pandemic upon Africans and African-Americans. The long term objective of the documentary film series/curriculum enhancement is to foster a heightened awareness of the need for HIV prevention among African-Americans, particularly teenagers, who are at high risk for contracting HIV, and who have often proved unresponsive to traditional HIV prevention messages. African-Americans constitute 12.1 % of the US population but account for almost 50% of the new HIV/AIDS cases. The documentary film series is being made with a small cohort of 20 inner-city African-American high school students in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The students work on the documentary series as footage evaluators, apprentice filmmakers, and will ultimately be its narrative voice. They are also research subjects. An interim evaluation report showed a dramatic increase in the students' perceived knowledge of HIV/AIDS, and a substantial decrease in their reported sexual activity. A widespread and scientifically significant Phase II evaluation of this project would be conducted via pre and post anonymous surveys administered to African-American teenagers, (high school students), and matching control groups. The ABC and PBS networks have already agreed to screen the documentary series for broadcast consideration. The Phase II application proposes to 1) complete editing and postproduction of the documentary series, and 2) work with curriculum writers and an educational video distribution company on the development and dissemination of the documentary series/curriculum enhancement.
Serial Passage: AIDS, Race, and Culture is a multi-part documentary series. The Long-term goals are: 1) to produce a documentary series exploring the specific and devastating impact of H.I.V./AIDS upon Africans and African-Americans; and 2) to create a heightened understanding of the need for H.I.V. prevention among the high-risk group of young, inner-city African-Americans who've so far proved unresponsive to available public health information. Specific Aims: 1) To deconstruct the racial stigma of AIDS, and scientifically confront the conspiracy theories which are firmly linked to the disease in black America, and in Africa; and 2) to work with an inner-city high school science class, actively involving them in the making of the series. Research Design and Methods: 1) To document on film the process of scientific inquiry which led two prominent researchers to their theory on the origin of AIDS; 2) To document on film the social impact of H.I.V/AIDS upon specific African countries, including Uganda and South Africa, and upon African-American communities in the United States; 3) To periodically screen footage of the documentary for the high school class and conduct videotaped discussions between the students and the scientists throughout one academic year; and 4) To give the students a videotaped questionnaire at the beginning and end of the year designed to measure how much they learn about AIDS and its impact upon their particular community.
Hispanic Role Models in Health Careers: Empowering Hispanic Nurses to Leverage Traditional Spanish language and New Social Media to Inspire the Next Generation of Culturally Diverse and Competent Health Care Professionals The National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN), in association with the Hispanic Communications Network (HCN), proposes to address the shortage of bilingual professionals in all health fields by recruiting and interviewing bilingual role models and arranging to broadcast those interviews nationwide. Leveraging HCN's nationally broadcast health education radio shows, whose cumulative audiences are larger than NPR's 'All Things Considered,' this project has the potential to reach one out of every three US Hispanics during its first five years. This media campaign is intended to inspire Hispanic parents to encourage their children to study science and aspire to careers in the biomedical professions. It is also intended to inspire and empower Spanish-speaking adults from all walks of life to consider careers in the health professions. All broadcasts will tie to NAHN's interactive website so that students and adults interested in changing careers can find mentors and educational resources. NAHN will also use YouTube, Facebook, mobile phone applications, and other new and popular social media technologies to reach a broad cross-section of English speaking youth and young adults. In addition to the national media outputs, attendees at NAHN's annual conferences will have the opportunity to receive training in public speaking and media relations so they can more effectively use local media in their own communities to address health disparities and promote careers in the biomedical and health professions. NAHN will develop a standardized, bilingual Toolkit for public presentations. The Toolkit will include a Powerpoint presentation embedded with video containing gender- and other- stereotype-busting role model interviews with Hispanic nurses, links to an online database of volunteer mentors, and a bilingual terminology packet that will aid nurses in creating linguistic and cognitive bridges between audience and professional knowledge bases. We expect that the refined Toolkit will empower nurses and other health professionals to become more effective public health educators and career role models during their presentations at community health events, career fairs, achievement clubs, and school assemblies. An Advisory Committee of other health organizations, professionals, and advocates will recommend Role Models and provide periodic feedback. Bilingual independent evaluators associated with the UC Berkeley School of Public Health will conduct qualitative and quantitative formative, iterative, and summative evaluations throughout the project. Their recommendations and findings will be incorporated into the project design and deliverables and shared with relevant fields.
Having developed the concept of near-peer mentorship at the middle school/high school level and utilized it in a summer science education enhancement program now called Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science or GEMS at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), it is now our goal to ultimately expand this program into an extensive, research institute-based source of young, specially selected, near-peer mentors armed with kits, tools, teacher-student developed curricula, enthusiasm, time and talent for science teaching in the urban District of Columbia Public Schools (specific schools) and several more rural disadvantaged schools (Frederick and Howard Counties) in science teaching. We describe this program as a new in-school component, involving science clubs and lunch programs, patterned after our valuable summer science training modules and mentorship program. Our in-house program is at its maximum capacity at the Institute. Near-peer mentors will work in WRAIR's individual laboratories while perfecting/adapting hands-on activities for the new GEMS-X program to be carried out at McKinley Technology HS, Marian Koshland Museum, Roots Charter School and Lincoln Junior HS in DC, West Frederick Middle School, Frederick, MD and Folly Quarter Middle School and Glenelg HS, in Howard County, MD. Based on local demographics in these urban/rural areas, minority and disadvantaged youth, men and women, may choose science, mathematics, engineering and technology (SMET) careers with increasing frequency after participating, at such an early age, in specific learning in the quantitative disciplines. Many of these students take challenging courses within their schools, vastly improve their standardized test scores, take on internship opportunities, are provided recommendations from scientists and medical staff and ultimately are able to enter health professions that were previously unattainable. Relevance to Public Health: The Gains in the Education of Mathematis and Science (GEMS) program educates a diverse student population to benefit their science education and ultimately may improve the likelihood of successfully entry into a health or health-related professions for participating individuals. Medical education has been show to improve public health.
Individuals are at an increased risk to drop out of the STEM pipeline if they are female or Latino, and during certain periods including high school. Families are a potential untapped resource of support for high school students. Based on the expectancy-value model, we examined if a variety of parental behaviors predicted students’ ability self-concepts in and value they placed on biology, chemistry, and physics. Self-report surveys were collected from 988 9th grade Latino boys, Latina girls, Caucasian boys, and Caucasian girls. The findings suggest that, as early as the beginning of high