Graduate education in the United States plays a critical role in the success of the U.S. workforce and economy, attracting and producing influential researchers, innovators, and leaders. U.S. graduate schools are the environments in which students acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in the global economy and solve problems of national and global scope. The link between graduate education and American prosperity has never been stronger than it is today. But little is known at the granular level about what our graduates do, how their work life progresses, and how well the
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Commission on Pathways Through Graduate School and Into CareersCathy WendlerBrent BridgemanRoss MarkleFred ClineNathan BellPatricia McAllisterJulia Kent
This Pathways project responds to the high level of public skepticism about climate change science despite strong scientific consensus. In 2010, two George Mason University / Yale University polls became headline news in mainstream media (such as the NY Times and NPR) when they reported that 50% or more of our broadcast meteorologists and TV news directors are skeptical about global climate science. A full 30% of TV broadcast meteorologists, who are largely untrained in disciplines other than meteorology and weather forecasting, denounce anthropogenic global warming (AGW) as a hoax or a scam. Such polls strongly suggest that the general public trusts media statements over scientific facts, despite position statements acknowledging dominantly human responsibility for global warming in the past 50 years from nearly every U.S. professional society dealing with Earth sciences. Climate literacy in citizens and policy makers is essential for advancing responsible public policy on energy legislation, carbon emission reductions, and other climate change issues, and TV broadcast meteorologists have great potential for enhancing that literacy.
The goal of this outreach program was for Chemistry at the Space-Time (CaSTL) limit to partner with the Boys and Girls Club (BGC) of Santa Ana, CA to increase their participants' interest, enthusiasm and learning outcomes in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) fields, through the development of science and chemistry hands-on lessons. The Boys and Girls Club of Santa Ana serves nearly 2,700 participants each day at six sites. Ninety percent of their participants identify as Hispanic/Latino and 93% are on free or reduced lunch. Although the Boys and Girls Club offers limited STEM activities, they agreed to partner with CaSTL, a UC-Irvine NSF-funded Center for Chemical Innovation, to expand their STEM ISE activities. CaSTL, in close collaboration with both the California Science Project of Irvine (CSPI), developed 24 science lesson plans that engage participants in high-level, hands-on, and interactive lessons that expose program participants to the visualization of chemistry and physics, based on CaSTL's mission. All lessons align with the California Science Standards, are highly interactive, and do not mimic the school day. These lessons compliment the state standards, but go much further in providing the participants experimental, hands-on activities that they often do not receive in their schools, due to budget, space and time restrictions. CaSTL faculty and graduate students ensured that the lens through which CaSTL research occurs was clearly represented in the lessons. CaSTL graduate students developed one of the lessons and kit and taught the spectroscopy lesson at the club.
This MSP-Start Partnership, led by Widener University, in partnership with Bryn Mawr College, Delaware County Community College, Philadelphia University, Lincoln University, and Haverford Township School District, is developing the Greater Philadelphia Environment, Energy, and Sustainability Science (ES)2 Teacher Leader Institute. Additional partners include the Center for Social and Economic Research at West Chester University, Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center, Energy Coordinating Agency, US EPA Region 3 Office of Innovation, National Center for Science and Civic Engagement and its SENCER program, Pennsylvania Campus Compact, Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development, Project Kaleidoscope, Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia, and the 21st Century Partnership for STEM Education. Building on a base of relationships developed over the past five years by many partners in the Math Science Partnership of Greater Philadelphia, the project brings together faculty and resources from multiple institutions (a "Mega-University" model) to develop a coherent, innovative, and content-rich, multi-year curriculum in environment, energy, and sustainability science for an Institute that leads to a newly developed Master's degree. Teachers participating in the Institute (A) improve their STEM content knowledge in areas critical to human environmental sustainability, (B) improve their use of project based/service learning and scientific teaching pedagogies in their teaching, (C) engage in real-world sustainability problem solving in an externship with a local business, non-profit or government organization that is active in the newly emerging green economy, and (D) develop important leadership skills as change agents in their schools to improve student interest, learning, and engagement in STEM education. The Institute aims to serve as a regional hub, connecting educational, business, non-profit and government organizations to strengthen the STEM education and workforce development pipelines in the region and simultaneously support positive social change toward environmental sustainability and citizenship. The project's "Mega-University" and "Institute as a regional connector-hub" approaches are powerful models of collaboration that could have widespread and significant national applicability as organizations and systems adjust to the new challenges of our global economy and to the needed transition to sustainability.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Stephen MadigoskyWilliam KeilbaughVictor DonnayBruce GrantThomas Schrand
This research study involves collaboration between researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park and Bowie State University, an HBCU, to examine a multi-component pre-service model for preparing minority students to teach upper elementary and middle level science. The treatment consists of (1) focused recruitment efforts by the collaborating universities; (2) a pre-service science content course emphasizing inquiry and the mathematics of data management; (3) an internship in an after school program serving minority students; (4) field placements in Prince Georges County minority-serving professional development schools; and (5) mentoring support during the induction year. The research agenda will examine each aspect of the intervention using quantitative and qualitative methods and a small number of case studies.
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James McginnisSpencer BensonScott Dantley
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This four year project led by The American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) will continue fostering interactions among projects funded by the Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12)through a series of meetings that include one annual meeting and two special focus meetings every year. The annual meeting will be broad and will target all different GK-12 participants (PIs, Fellows, Teachers, Project Coordinators, Evaluators and Faculty Members). The special focus meetings will target a specific GK-12 group or will explore a theme or issue of special interest to the GK-12 program or GK-12 projects. AAAS also will update the current website and revise and expand its content to provide a resource to the GK-12 community. Some of the additions to the website will be: an e-newsletter, alumni directory, evaluation instruments, ready access to STEM activities and statistical data on projects.
The National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED) is a Science and Technology Center focused on understanding the processes that shape the Earth's surface, and on communicating that understanding with a broad range of stakeholders. NCED's work will support a larger, community-based effort to develop a suite of quantitative models of the Earth's surface: a Community Sediment Model (CSM). Results of the NCED-CSM collaboration will be used for both short-term prediction of surface response to natural and anthropogenic change and long-term interpretation of how past conditions are recorded in landscapes and sedimentary strata. This will in turn help solve pressing societal problems such as estimation and mitigation of landscape-related risk; responsible management of landscape resources including forests, agricultural, and recreational areas; forecasting landscape response to possible climatic and other changes; and wise development of resources like groundwater and hydrocarbons that are hosted in buried sediments. NCED education and knowledge transfer programs include exhibits and educational programs at the Science Museum of Minnesota, internships and programs for students from tribal colleges and other underrepresented populations, and research opportunities for participants from outside core NCED institutions. The Earth's surface is the dynamic interface among the lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere. It is intimately interwoven with the life that inhabits it. Surface processes span environments ranging from high mountains to the deep ocean and time scales from fractions of a second to millions of years. Because of this range in forms, processes, and scales, the study of surface dynamics has involved many disciplines and approaches. A major goal of NCED is to foster the development of a unified, quantitative science of Earth-surface dynamics that combines efforts in geomorphology, civil engineering, biology, sedimentary geology, oceanography, and geophysics. Our research program has four major themes: (1) landscape evolution, (2) basin evolution, (3) biological sediment dynamics, and (4) integration of morphodynamic processes across environments and scales. Each theme area provides opportunities for exchange of information and ideas with a wide range of stakeholders, including teachers and learners at all levels; researchers, managers, and policy makers in both the commercial and public sectors; and the general public.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Efi Foufoula-GeorgiouChristopher PaolaGary Parker
The University of Massachusetts Lowell conducted 1.5-day conference in the fall of 2011, titled "Learning on the Go: Using Out-of-Home Media to Communicate Climate Science." The conference, held at the Lowell Inn and Conference Center, brought together approximately 125 professionals and students in climate science, communications, out-of-home media, social science, informal and formal science education, and educational psychology with the goal of exploring opportunities for applying out-of-home media to communicating science to the public, with a particular emphasis on climate change science. "Out-of-home media" is defined as any type of communication that reaches individuals while they are out of the home, including mobile media, billboards, mass transit placards, posters, etc. The intent was to consider how informal science education and its impacts on learning can be expanded via the adaptation of such media to the goals of ISE. Conference proceedings and podcasts of keynote sessions will be made available on a conference Web site. Conference evaluation will be conducted by Arbor Consulting Partners.
In MIT’s NSF-funded Terrascope Youth Radio (TYR) program, urban youth, many from groups historically underrepresented in the sciences, worked as paid interns who received training in radio production, reporting and writing stories with scientific content and audio storytelling to create environmentally oriented audio pieces that were engaging and relevant to their own and their peers’ lives. Teen interns participated between July 2008 and Autumn 2012. TYR’s goals were to improve a broad audience of teens’ engagement with, knowledge of, and attitudes about science, technology, engineering, and
The Science Source Pathways Project will conduct initial work designing and testing a new model for providing news on STEM related topics to the rural and Native American communities in Montana. This project will enhance understanding of how the communication of scientific research reaches and impacts underrepresented audiences. A collaborative model will be developed between the environmental journalism program at the University of Montana and various local television, radio, and online media outlets that are either operated by or reach Native Americans on reservations and throughout the state. Project deliverables include a survey and analysis of current science reporting reaching this audience; and production and testing of prototype science news stories for dissemination on various platforms (print, radio, TV, web). The development of science news pieces will be led by graduate students in the School of Journalism under the careful guidance and mentorship of experienced professors. This project will enhance the communication and amount of STEM content delivered to underserved groups, and provide diverse opportunities for them to engage in STEM related environmental issues that affect their local communities.
The Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS) is a five-year collaborative effort between the Exploratorium in San Francisco, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and King's College London. The purpose of the Center is to study the intersection of informal science learning that takes place in museums and science centers and formal learning that takes place in schools, and to prepare leaders in informal science education. Through the efforts of the center, new doctoral level leaders will be prepared who understand how informal science learning takes place and how informal institutions can contribute to science education reform. A Ph.D. program will be offered to 16 individuals at King's College London (two cohorts of eight) and a post-doctoral program to six scientists interested in issues of learning and teaching in informal settings. A doctoral program is planned at the University of California at Santa Cruz for 24 students, 12 whose interests are primarily in education and 12 who come from the sciences. In addition to doctoral level training, there will be a certification program for existing informal science professionals to better enable them to support teachers, students and the general public. That program will provide 160 informal science educators 120 hours of professional development experiences, and an additional 24 informal science educators with a master's degree in informal science education at UC Santa Cruz. A Bay Area Institute will be developed to serve as a central focus for all CILS activities. It will bring together researchers and practitioners; it will offer courses and workshops for graduate students; and it will provide a central location for reporting research findings and methodologies that focus on how informal learning institutions can best contribute to science education reform.
This project augments an NCES data collection effort for the High School Longitudinal Study by including 150 additional schools in up to 10 selected states to create state representative samples of at least 40 schools in each state. NCES will create a contract with a survey organization to collect survey data from students in about 800 schools starting at the 9th grade and following them to age 26. The student, teacher, and parent survey data will be merged with state administrative data. Thus the final data set for these states will include detailed longitudinal data on student education histories, test scores, courses, demographics, and other survey information about parents and teachers. In some of the states the student data will be linked with detailed teacher data. The purpose of this augmentation is to provide support for additional schools to create state samples. NSF will also be involved in planning for future surveys of these students as they reach college age.