Hopa Mountain, working in partnership with Montana State University (MSU), will develop innovative and coordinated opportunities for Montana youth to strengthen their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills and knowledge while preparing them for higher education and careers in health sciences. The overall project goal of HealthMakers is to support rural and tribal youth’s interest and exposure to careers in the sciences while giving them the skills and resources to play leadership roles in increasing healthy family practices in their homes and communities. HealthMakers will achieve meaningful impacts annually through four strategies: (1) Health-focused college preparation programs for 50 teens; (2) Summer academic enrichment programs for 20 teens; (3) Community-based science literacy events for 2,000 children and their families, and (4) Professional development for educators, community members, and parents. Hopa Mountain and MSU will engage youth, educators, community leaders, and parents in training opportunities through HealthMakers. Participants will take part in community-based workshops, college tours, and summer institutes led by MSU faculty, healthcare professionals, Hopa Mountain staff, and their peers. Through these strategic aims, HealthMakers will help create a stronger workforce and inspire students to pursue careers in the sciences.
PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE:
HealthMakers will support the development of health-related outreach and college preparation programs and training resources to create a better-informed workforce for Montana and inspire students to pursue careers in the sciences. These strategic aims and deliverables benefiting rural and tribal families and children, will help create a stronger workforce and inspire students to pursue careers in the sciences. Working together, Hopa Mountain and Montana State University will support rural and tribal youth’s interest and exposure to careers in the health sciences while giving them the skills and resources to play leadership roles in increasing healthy family practices in their communities.
Underrepresented minorities (URMs) represent 33% of the US college age population and this will continue to increase (1). In contrast, only 26% of college students are URMs. In the area of Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), only 15% of college students completing a STEM major are URMs (2). While there have been gains in the percent of Hispanic and Black/African Americans pursuing college degrees, the number of Native American college students remains alarmingly low. In 2013, Native Americans represented only 1% of entering college students and less than 50% finished their degree. Moreover, 1% of students pursuing advanced degrees in STEM-related fields are Native American/Alaska Native. With regards to high school graduation rates, the percent of Native American/Alaska Native students completing high school has decreased with only 51% of students completing high school in 2010 compared to 62 % and 68% for Black and Latino students respectively. While identifying ways to retain students from all underrepresented groups is important, developing programs targeting Native American students is crucial. In collaboration with the Hopi community, a three-week summer course for Native American high school students at Harvard was initiated in 2001. Within three years, the program expanded to include three additional Native American communities. 225 students participated in the program over a 10-year period; and 98% of those responding to the evaluation completed high school or obtained a GED and 98% entered two or four year colleges including 6 students who entered Harvard. This program was reinitiated in 2015 and we plan to build on the existing structure and content of this successful program. Specifically, in collaboration with two Native American communities, the goal of the program is 1) to increase participants’ knowledge of STEM disciplines and their relevance to issues in participants’ communities via a three week case-based summer course for Native American high school students; 2) to help enhance secondary school STEM education in Native American communities by providing opportunities for curriculum development and classroom enhancement for secondary school teachers in the participating Native American communities; and 3) to familiarize students with the college experience and application process and enhance their readiness for college through workshops, college courses and internships. Through these activities we hope to 1) increase the number of Native American students completing high school; 2) increase the number of Native American students applying and being accepted to college; 3) increase the number of Native American students pursuing STEM degrees and careers; 4) increase the perception among Native American students that attending and Ivy plus institution is attainable; 5) increase the feeling of empowerment that they can help their community by pursuing advanced degrees in STEM.
PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE:
This proposal supports a summer program for high school students and teachers from Native American communities. The program goals are to encourage students to complete high school and prepare them for college and to also consider degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math.
The goals of this proposal are: 1) to provide opportunities for underrepresented students to consider careers in basic or clinical research by exciting them through an educational Citizen Science research project; 2) to provide teachers with professional development in science content and teaching skills using research projects as the infrastructure; and 3) to improve the environments and behaviors in early childcare and education settings related to healthy lifestyles across the state through HSTA students Citizen Science projects. The project will complement or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nation’s biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs. It will encourage interactive partnerships between biomedical and clinical researchers,in-service teachers and early childcare and education facilities to prevent obesity.
Specific Aim I is the Biomedical Summer Institute for Teachers led by university faculty. This component is a one week university based component. The focus is to enhance teacher knowledge of biomedical characteristics and problems associated with childhood obesity, simple statistics, ethics and HIPAA compliance, and the principles of Citizen Science using Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). The teachers, together with the university faculty and staff, will develop the curriculum and activities for Specific Aim II.
Specific Aim II is the Biomedical Summer Institute for Students, led by HSTA teachers guided by university faculty. This experience will expose 11th grade HSTA students to the biomedical characteristics and problems associated with obesity with a focus on early childhood. Students will be trained on Key 2 a Healthy Start, which aims to improve nutrition and physical activity best practices, policies and environments in West Virginia’s early child care and education programs. The students will develop a meaningful project related to childhood obesity and an aspect of its prevention so that the summer institute bridges seamlessly into Specific Aim III.
Specific Aim III is the Community Based After School Club Experiences. The students and teachers from the summer experience will lead additional interested 9th–12th grade students in their clubs to examine their communities and to engage community members in conducting public health intervention research in topics surrounding childhood obesity prevention through Citizen Science. Students and teachers will work collaboratively with the Key 2 a Healthy Start team on community projects that will be focused on providing on-going technical assistance that will ultimately move the early childcare settings towards achieving best practices related to nutrition and physical activity in young children.
The purpose of the proposed project, Community of Bilingual English-Spanish Speakers Exploring Issues in Science and Health (CBESS), is to increase linguistic diversity in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)-healthcare fields, including biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research careers. With support of the large group of Spanish-English bilingual (SEB), STEM-healthcare professionals that was formed during this proposal preparation, CBESS will contribute to the pipeline between K–12 and higher education/career.
CBESS will recruit Spanish-English bilingual (SEB) high-school students at the end of tenth grade and implement several language-supported STEM-healthcare interventions during the eleventh and twelfth grade (17 months): family-engaged career exploration; Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned, inquiry-based, youth-led summer research residential program; community outreach/dissemination, internships, and mentoring.
Applying methods that are known to be effective with the target population, CBESS will also train undergraduate, near-peer instructor-mentors—STEM-healthcare Leadership Trainees (LT)—in inquiry-based instruction and strategies for positioning K–12 bilingual students as “insiders” in STEM-healthcare, as well as in the responsible conduct of research and mentoring skills, followed by practical application with SR.
CBESS will develop and expand the nascent SEB STEM-healthcare community of practice (CoP) that was created during CBESS proposal preparation. Committed academic, clinical, research, and community partners will contribute to research and evaluation efforts, and support the pipeline between K–12 and higher education/career through Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), framing priority community health issues to be addressed by each cohort of SR from among issues identified by the SR during the application process. Finally, the CoP will target long-term institutional sustainability for linguistically diverse students in STEM-healthcare education and careers.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. The three-year project, Montana Models: Connecting Local and Disciplinary Practices through University-Community Partnerships, focuses on creating, implementing, and studying several learning outcomes associated with youth engagement in mathematical modeling contexts. The project builds on existing partnerships between the state's two research universities and Montana 4-H to target outreach to rural youth and bring them into a network of people who can inspire, support, and sustain STEM learning. Middle school and high school students from rural communities will be invited to a university campus for a residential modeling-based summer program l focused on mathematics and mathematical modeling. Activities at the summer program are designed to engage them in problems relevant to their own backgrounds and experiences and to honor their local funds of knowledge. The primary goal of Montana Models is to use mathematical modeling as a mechanism for bringing everyday mathematical practices already present in rural communities into contact with disciplinary practices. The project focuses on the following research questions: (1) What are the everyday mathematical practices in Montana communities? (2) How can everyday mathematical practices be leveraged and brought into contact with disciplinary practices in service of mathematizing meaningful questions within the community? (3) How do youth identify and get identified with respect to mathematics and with respect to their role in the world? (4) How does participation in project activities affect participants' knowledge of mathematical practices and content? The project uses social design experimentation, a hybrid research methodology which combines the traditions of design-based research with forms of inquiry that involve collaboration among participants, researchers, and other stakeholders, such as critical ethnography. Data sources include field notes from ethnographic observations, interviews, videos of students engaging in modeling activities, artifacts that show their mathematical work, and results from the Attitudes Towards Mathematics Inventory. Through its collaboration with 4-H, Montana Models targets outreach to rural youth across the state, especially those from groups that are typically underrepresented in STEM fields. The project is poised to impact ways in which formal and informal educators understand the knowledge bases that are already present in rural communities and how those bases may inform, support, and sustain STEM learning. Findings and deliverables will be disseminated through a public-facing website and through the 4-H infrastructure. This infrastructure includes Montana 4-H's Clover Communication Contest that will allow participating youth to showcase their projects. Research findings will be shared through local and national conferences and peer-reviewed publications. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. This exploratory Pilot study project brings together a diverse set of partners that include the Watertown Children's Theatre (WCT) which is west of Boston, and, from Boston College a team of science educators, learning science researchers, and positive youth development experts. The goal is to design and develop a project for middle school-aged youth. The pilot project, which integrates hands-on science learning experiences, experiments, and field trips with the student-led production of short plays, will engage youth in expressing their beliefs, passions, and their own identities about STEM by examining how the intersection of skills and practices used in both domains (science and theatre) can enable them to learn about science concepts, principles and methods as well as to develop science-focused identities. Middle-school youth will be engaged in a three-week summer program where they will be led by science teachers, playwrights, and high school students to conduct hands-on investigations in science in conjunction with developing original, ten-minute plays around a specific scientific theme relevant to their life experience, for example, the potential impact on their lives of heavy metals in water and poor air quality. After a science theme is chosen, the principal investigators will identify the big ideas that are important for youth to understand and be able to explain. Upon identification of the key science ideas, youth will then engage in pertinent science activities, visits to local sites, reading current news articles and then in identifying the local impacts and how the underlying science relates to those local impacts. The youth will perform their ten-minute plays at the end of the summer program. Following this showcase event, they will engage in additional science learning experiences and also revise their productions throughout the academic year in preparation for a youth science festival, where their creations will be performed by professional adult actors as a part of the Cambridge Science Festival taking place in the spring. The broader impact of the work focuses on broadening participation in STEM, specifically, the engagement of youth from under-represented populations in the sciences, such as African-Americans, Latinxs, and women with partner Boston Public Schools. The Pilot study will investigate the student learning and organizational dimensions of the model being developed.
The Boston College researchers will study youth's sense of purpose and identity toward science, particularly how youth's identity discrepancy changes through participation in the project. The work places youth voice at the center of the creation of STEM-based theatre plays. The theoretical foundation of the work is grounded in part in the concept of "path to purpose." The major research questions are: How do youth perceptions (interest, science anxiety, identity) toward science shift as they participate in the project? What is the residual impact on parents (family members) and youth on their discussions about science, and how does participation in the project impact those discussions? Research methods include surveys, interviews and observations. The external evaluation study will focus on understanding project implementation and progress toward meeting the project goals, in particular, how well the initiative works to establish a model for the informal STEM learning field that the team and others can apply beyond the Pilot study.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Meghan Hill
resourceprojectWebsites, Mobile Apps, and Online Media
The ACCEYSS (Association of Collaborative Communities Equipping Youth for STEM Success) Network and Model project, an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot, at Texas State University is forming a university-community partnership between interdisciplinary researchers (ACCEYSS research team), faith leaders and other community partners to implement an innovative model that prepares underrepresented and underserved youth to pursue undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees. The inaugural ACCEYSS network will include Texas State University, San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District, San Marcos Youth Service Bureau, City of San Marcos-Office of the City Manager, Hays County Youth Initiative, the Calaboose African American History Museum, and several local faith-based organizations. Many historic advancements have been made through the efforts and activities of faith and community leaders uniquely poised to motivate and galvanize community-based action. A collaboration among these academic institutions, social/cultural organizations, and faith partners to work with the families and youth of underrepresented/underserved populations will be an essential asset for generating new perspectives and ideas for improving STEM academic and career outcomes related to broadening participation in the scientific enterprise.
During this launch pilot, the ACCEYSS research team and network will collaborate to design and develop the ACCEYSS model as a culturally-relevant, blended-learning strategy that integrates online and in-person STEM enrichment activities (e.g., summer institute, afterschool clubs) that are aligned with the Science and Engineering Practices and Disciplinary Core Ideas Dimensions of the K-12 Next Generation Science Education Standards. The collective impact framework will be used to build diverse capacity, leverage asset-based community development, and sustain mutually reinforcing non-exclusive policies and practices for STEM diversity and inclusion. Additionally, in this launch pilot, a multifaceted design-based research approach will be utilized to support middle and high school students' interest in and pursuit of STEM studies.
The University of Texas at Austin's Texas Advanced Computing Center, Chaminade University of Honolulu (CUH), and the Georgia Institute of Technology will lead this NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot (DDLP) to establish a model for data science preparation of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) students at the high school and undergraduate levels. The project is premised on the promise of NHPI communities gaining access to, and the ability to work with, large data sets to tackle emerging problems in the Pacific. Such agency over "big data" sets that are relevant to Pacific issues, and contemporary skills in data science, analytics and visualization have the potential to be transformative for community improvement efforts. The effort has the potential to advance knowledge, instructional pedagogy and practices to improve NHPI high school and undergraduate students performance in and attraction to STEM education and careers.
The project team will work to: 1) Increase interest and proficiency in data science and visualization among NHPI high school and undergraduate students through a summer immersion experience that bridges computation and culture; 2) Build data science capacity at an NHPI serving undergraduate institution (CUH) through creation of a certificate program; and 3) Develop and expand partnerships with other organizations with related goals working with NHPI populations. The month-long summer training for 20 NHPI college students, and five NHPI high school students, takes place at CUH and focuses on data science, visualization, and virtual reality, including working on problem sets that require data science approaches and incorporate geographically, socially- and culturally-relevant research themes.
This NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot is to expand the Navajo Nation Math Circle model to other sites, and to develop and launch a network of math circles based on the NNMC model. The Navajo Nation Math Circle model is a novel approach to broadening the participation of indigenous peoples in mathematics that, ultimately, seeks to improve American Indian students' attitudes towards mathematics, persistence with challenging problems, and grades in math courses. Navajo Nation Math Circles bring teachers, students, and mathematicians together to work collaboratively on challenging, but meaningful and fun, math problems. Through this NSF INCLUDES project, additional math circles across the Navajo Nation will be launched and a mirror site in Washington State serving additional tribes (such as Puyallup, Muckleshoot, Tulalip, and Stillaguamish) will be established.
Originating approximately a century ago in Eastern Europe as a means to engage students in mathematical thinking, math circles bring teachers, students, and math professionals together to work collaboratively on challenging, but relevant and interesting, math problems. Navajo Nation Math Circles, established math circles in various Navajo Nation communities, are the foundation of this INCLUDES project. One goal of this effort is to launch a network with the capacity to support the replication and adaption of math circles in multiple sites as an innovative strategy for encouraging indigenous math engagement through culturally enriched open-ended group math explorations. In addition, the Navajo Nation Math Circle model will be expanded to new math circles in the Navajo Nation, as well as in Washington State to serve additional tribes. Cells in the network will implement key elements of the Navajo Nation Math Circle model, adapting them to their particular contexts. Such elements include facilitation of open-ended group math explorations, incorporating indigenous knowledge systems; a Mathematical Visitor Program sending mathematicians to schools to work with students and their teachers; inclusion of mathematics in public festivals to increase community mathematical awareness; a two-week summer math camp for students; and teacher development opportunities ranging from workshops to immersion experiences to a mentoring program pairing teachers with mathematicians.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David AucklyHenry FowlerJayadev Athreya
The University of Guam (UOG) NSF INCLUDES Launch Pilot project, GROWING STEM, addresses the grand challenge of increasing Native Pacific Islander representation in the nation's STEM enterprise, particularly in environmental sciences. The project addresses culturally-relevant and place-based research as the framework to attract, engage, and retain Native Pacific Islander students in STEM disciplines. The full science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) pathway will be addressed from K-12 to graduate studies with partnerships that include the Guam Department of Education, Humatak Community Foundation, Pacific Post-Secondary Education Council, the Guam Science and Discovery Society, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and the University of Alaska-Fairbaanks. As the project progresses, the project anticipates further partnerships with the current NSF INCLUDES Launch Pilot project at the University of the Virgin Islands.
Pilot activities include summer internships for high school students, undergraduate and graduate research opportunities through UOG's Plant Nursery and the Humatak Community Foundation Heritage House. STEM professional development activities will be offered through conference participation and student research presentations in venues such as the Guam Science and Discovery Society's Guam Island-wide Science Fair and SACNAS. Faculty will be recruited to develop a mentoring protocol for the project participants. Community outreach and extension services will expand public understanding in environmental sciences from the GROW STEM project. Project metrics will include monitoring the diversity of partners, increases in community engagement, Native Pacific Islander participation in STEM activities, the number of students who desire to attain terminal STEM degrees and the number of community members reached by pilot STEM extension and outreach activities. Dissemination of the GROWING STEM pilot project results will occur through the NSF INCLUDES National Network, partner annual conferences, and local, regional and national STEM conferences.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
John PetersonCheryl SanguezaElse DemeulenaereAustin Shelton
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. The project will conduct research designed to deepen our fundamental knowledge about culture, experience, and ecosystems cognition and to develop innovative practices and approaches to support learning about changing ecological systems and environmental decision making. Work on cultural differences in the production of complex systems knowledge is severely lacking. This gap in knowledge may contribute to the continued reproduction of inequities in science education. More broadly findings from this project will have clear implications for theories of cognitive development, especially those pertaining to how knowledge is shaped by culture and experience. Focusing on ecosystems may represent an opportunity to not only increase engagement and achievement in science among non-dominant communities and Native youth specifically, but also advance effective learning for all communities. The primary deliverables for the project are conference presentations and research publications. However, the project will also develop additional resources freely available to researchers, educators, and the general public. These will include summer curricular materials and teaching tools, professional development workshops, practitioner briefs about research findings that can be used in professional development workshops and shared share more broadly, and evaluation reports.
A deeper understanding of cultural influences on conceptions of the natural world can serve to advance the educational needs of children, including children from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Project research will include two interrelated series of studies designed to expand knowledge about human cognition of complex ecosystems and the affordances of informal STEM learning environments in developing and supporting the critical 21st century skill of ecological systems level reasoning. The first consists of a series of experiments focused on ecological cognition and the role of humans in nature. The second consists of design-based research interventions in informal settings, summer workshops for youth and the communities, focused on ecological systems level thinking and socio-environmental decision making. The project will recruit and engage both child and adult participants from two broad cultural communities, Native Americans and European Americans living in urban and suburban communities, in part because it affords a sharp test of human-nature relations. Sampling from two different urban communities will avoid simple Native-non-Native comparative binaries and to conduct Native-to-Native comparative analysis. Based on results from this, the project will result in: 1) foundational knowledge about human learning and reasoning and ecosystems and environmental decision making, 2) culturally responsive models of learning and practice about complex ecosystems for indoors and outdoors informal learning environments, and 3) insights about research-practice-community partnerships. One important objective of the research is to broaden participation and close opportunity gaps for under-represented groups in STEM fields broadly and more specifically for Indigenous people. Members of Indigenous communities, who provide strong role models for other aspiring scholars, will be involved as postdoctoral fellows, research assistants and graduate fellows.
To reach its full potential in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), the United States must continue to recruit, prepare and maintain a diverse STEM workforce. Much work has been done in this regard. Yet, underrepresentation in STEM fields persists and is especially pronounced for Hispanic STEM professionals. The Hispanic community is the youngest and fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the United States but comprises only seven percent of the STEM workforce. More evidence-based solutions and innovative approaches are required. This project endeavors to address the challenges of underrepresentation in STEM, especially among individuals of Hispanic descent, through an innovative approach. The University of San Diego will design, develop, implement, and test a multilayered STEM learning approach specific to STEM learning and workforce development in STEM fields targeting Hispanic youth. The STEM World of Work project will explore youth STEM identity through three mechanisms: (1) an assessment of their individual interests, strengths, and values, (2) exposure to an array of viable STEM careers, and (3) engagement in rigorous hands-on STEM activities. The project centers on a youth summer STEM enrichment program and a series of follow-up booster sessions delivered during the academic year in informal contexts to promote family engagement. Paramount to this work is the core focus on San Diego's Five Priority Workforce Sectors: Advanced Manufacturing, Information and Communications Technology, Clean Energy, Healthcare, and Biotech. Few, if any, existing projects in the Advancing Informal STEM learning portfolio have explored the potential connections between these five priority workforce sectors, informal STEM learning, and identity among predominately Hispanic youth and families engaged in a year-long, culturally responsive STEM learning and workforce focused program. If successful, the model could provide a template for the facilitation of similar efforts in the future.
The STEM World of Work project will use a mixed-methods, exploratory research design to better understand the variables influencing STEM learning and academic and career choices within the proposed context. The research questions will explore: (1) the impacts of the project on students' engagement, STEM identity, STEM motivation, and academic outcomes, (2) factors that moderate these outcomes, and (3) the impact the model has on influencing youths' personal goals and career choices. Data will be garnered through cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys and reflective focus groups with the students and their parents/guardians. Multivariate analysis of variance, longitudinal modeling, and qualitative analysis will be conducted to analyze and report the data. The findings will be disseminated using a variety of methods and platforms. The broader impacts of the findings and work are expected to extend well beyond the project team, graduate student mentors, project partners, and the estimated 120 middle school students and their families from the predominately Hispanic Chula Vista Community of San Diego who will be directly impacted by the project.
This exploratory pathways project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Perla MyersVitaliy PopovOdesma DalrympleYaoran LiJoi Spencer