This three-year project focuses on professional research experiences for middle and high school STEM teachers through investigations of the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI). Each year 10 teachers (in diverse fields including biology, chemistry, earth and environmental sciences, and oceanography) and three to five professional paleontologists will participate in a four-phase process of professional development, including: a (1) pre-trip orientation (May); (2) 12 days in Panama in July collecting fossils from previously reported, as well as newly discovered, sites; (3) a post-trip on-line (cyber-enabled) Community of Practice; and (4) a final wrap-up at the end of each cohort (December). In addition, some of the teachers may also elect to partner with scientists in their research laboratories, principally located in California, Florida, and New Mexico. The partners in Panama are from the Universidad Autónoma de Chiriquí (UNACHI), including faculty and students, as well as STEM teachers from schools in Panama. Teachers that participate in this RET will develop lesson plans related to fossils, paleontology, evolution, geology, past climate change, and related content aligned with current STEM standards.
The GABI, catalyzed by the formation of the Isthmus of Panama during the Neogene, had a profound effect on the evolution and geography of terrestrial organisms throughout the Americas and marine organisms globally. For example, more than 100 genera of terrestrial mammals dispersed between the Americas, and numerous marine organisms had their interoceanic distributions cut in half by the formation of the Isthmus. Rather than being considered a single event that occurred about 4 million years ago, the GABI likely represents a series of dispersals over the past 10 million years, some of which occurred before full closure of the Isthmus. New fossil discoveries in Panama resulting from the GABI RET (Research Experiences for Teachers) are thus contributing to the understanding of the complexity and timing of the GABI during the Neogene.
This award is being co-funded with the Office International and Integrative Activities.
BioEYES, a nonprofit outreach program using zebrafish to excite and educate K–12 students about science and how to think and act like scientists, has been integrated into hundreds of under-resourced schools since 2002. During the week-long experiments, students raise zebrafish embryos to learn principles of development and genetics. We have analyzed 19,463 participating students’ pre- and post-tests within the program to examine their learning growth and attitude changes towards science. We found that at all grade levels, BioEYES effectively increased students’ content knowledge and produced
Students find meaning and relevance in their learning when they connect lessons to real-world issues and possible career paths. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) Conservation Connect, a freely available video series, connects learners to wildlife, technology, and careers. Videos and supplementary resources are designed to serve middle school youth, but elementary and high school educators—and even FWS retirees—report that they also use the tools. Each episode features a species, a conservation career, and technology that professionals use to study or protect that species and its
A non-technical description of the project test explains its significance and importance.
The goal of this project is to help students easily identify themselves as science or engineering professionals and increase the proportion of the local population, dominantly minorities, who pursue science and technology careers. Experience has demonstrated that students are most engaged in technical fields when they can participate in active, hands-on learning around problems with application to their local community. The focus of the effort is in marine science, which has local relevance to both the environment and the economy of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The project will use interventions at three crucial stages: middle school, high-school-college transition, and master-PhD transition, to engage students with specific active-learning and research-oriented programs. Community partners comprise a wide-ranging local organization that leverages the resources of other successful collaborations.
A technical description of the project
This project will create a transferable model that uses innovative partnerships among universities, governmental and non-governmental organizations, a professional society, and businesses, to create a local backbone organization with a shared vision for change and common success metrics broaden participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This project addresses the critical challenge of building scientific identity to increase interest and engagement of underrepresented minorities in STEM fields in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The plan includes targeted interventions at three significant times in the student career pathway (middle/high school, early college, and graduate school) that comprise: (1) field experiences in the marine sciences for middle/high school students, (2) early field research experiences for college freshmen and sophomore students, (3) bridge programming to a Ph.D. partnership with Pennsylvania State University, and (4) an intensive mentoring program. The model is grounded in social innovation theory through a framework that meets the five conditions for collective impact: common agenda, shared measurement of data and results, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and backbone support.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kristin Wilson GrimesMarilyn BrandtNastassia JonesCarrie BucklinMonica Medina
This project will make synthetic biology activities accessible to high school students and teachers by providing them with an authentic but safe context to learn. These activities will also broaden their understanding and perspectives about how synthetic biology and bioengineering is used in personal, health, and food production contexts as well as raise their interest in STEM. The design of bioMAKERlab will generate an educational version of an existing professional-grade lab for synthetic biology to promote safe production, accessibility, and affordability for high schools and community colleges interested in integrating such wetlab activities into their curriculum.
Most current efforts to broaden access to maker activities for K-12 students have focused on developing collaborative fabrication workspaces (fablabs) involving 3D printers, laser cutters, and other digital and traditional tools. This project will develop and implement bioMAKERlab, an innovative wetlab starter kit and activities that will enable high school students and teachers to engage in synthetic biology by building genetic circuits that let microorganisms change color, smell, and shape. In synthetic biology, participants make their own DNA--gene by gene--and then grow their designs into real applications by inserting them into microorganisms to develop different traits and characteristics provided by the genes. The project will involve students from a Philadelphia public high school and young people participating in weekend workshops at The Franklin Institute, a Philadelphia-based science museum.
This project is a part of NSF's Maker Dear Colleague Letter portfolio (NSF 15-086), a collaborative investment of Directorates for Computer & Information Science & Engineering, Education and Human Resources, and Engineering.
Roots of Wisdom (also known as Generations of Knowledge; NSF-DRL #1010559) is a project funded by the National Science Foundation that aims to engage Native and non-Native youth (ages 11-14) and their families in Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and western science within culturally relevant contexts that present both worldviews as valuable, complementary ways of knowing, understanding, and caring for the natural world. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) and its partner organizations, The Indigenous Education Institute (IEI), The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI
Success stories of citizen science projects widely demonstrate the value of this open science paradigm and encourage organizations to shift towards new ways of doing research. While benefits for researchers are clear, outcomes for individuals participating in these projects are not easy to assess. The wide spectrum of volunteers collaborating in citizen science projects greatly contributes to the difficulty in the evaluation of the projects' outcomes. Given the strong links between many citizen science projects and education, in this work we present an experience with hundreds of students
The connections among neuroscience, educational research, and teaching practice have historically been tenuous (Cameron and Chudler 2003; Devonshire and Dommett 2010). This is particularly true in public schools, where so many issues are competing for attention—state testing, school politics, financial constraints, lack of time, and demands from parents and the surrounding community. Teachers and administrators often struggle to make use of advances in educational research to impact teaching and learning (Hardiman and Denckla 2009; Devonshire and Dommett 2010). At the Franklin Institute, we
Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium has been a strong and active partner in education for over 40 years, educating 1.7 million visitors annually. The zoo has become a leader in both informal and formal education by pioneering many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) initiatives. In 1996 the zoo moved from being a partner with others to becoming a true collaborator with a diverse group of education institutions. The zoo discovered that a successful partnership requires multiple organizations to come together and share resources for a cause. In partnering with school
At the end of the dark ages, anatomy was taught as though everything that could be known was known. Scholars learned about what had been discovered rather than how to make discoveries. This was true even though the body (and the rest of biology) was very poorly understood. The renaissance eventually brought a revolution in how scholars (and graduate students) were trained and worked. This revolution never occurred in K–12 or university education such that we now teach young students in much the way that scholars were taught in the dark ages, we teach them what is already known rather than the
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Robert DunnJulie UrbanDarlene CavalierCaren Cooper
This is a report of a project titled ‘The Contribution of Natural History Museums to Science Education’, funded by the Wellcome Trust and ESRC with a Phase 1 grant from the Science Learning+ initiative. The project explored how Natural History Museums (NHMs) and schools can complement one another to maximise learning among school-age learners, and researched the long-term benefits to learning and engagement with science that NHMs can provide. During the course of our work, our team, which consisted of museum professionals and academics in the UK and the US, worked in the UK and the US with
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. The SCIENCES project aims to create a STEM ecosystem in Fuller Park, a chronically, severely under-resourced urban community in Chicago.