This summary brief captures highlights from the second year of the NSF-funded WaterMarks project. The technical evaluation report for this same project period can be found on the main project page. The purpose of this document is to communicate key updates (as observed by the evaluation team) in a less technical way with the many different audiences who have an interest in keeping up with WaterMarks.
This is the evaluation report for the second year of the NSF-funded WaterMarks project. It reflects a current summary of available evidence about the intended outcomes of program activities to date, as well as commentary on how the project is using (or could use) this information moving forward.
This summary brief captures highlights from the evaluation report for the first year of the NSF-funded WaterMarks project (also available on this page). The purpose of this document is to communicate key updates from evaluation in a less technical way with the many different audiences who have an interest in keeping up with WaterMarks.
This is the evaluation report for the first year of the NSF-funded WaterMarks project. It reflects an initial summary of available evidence about the intended outcomes of program activities to date, as well as commentary on how the project is using (or could use) this information moving forward. This report contains descriptions of embedded measures (i.e. anonymized drawings and reflections captured on a thematic postcard) included in community walks and analyses of secondary data (i.e., interviews conducted by other members of hte project team), as well as reflections emerging from the
WCS Education is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive movement of conservation advocates. We do this by creating equitable pathways to increased scientific literacy, engagement in conservation advocacy, and lasting connection with animals and nature.
One of the programs that incorporates all of these strategies is Project TRUE (Teens Researching Urban Ecology). Project TRUE is a partnership between WCS and Fordham University that is both a social science research study and a youth development program designed to support youth in STEM career pathways. Teams of high school students
Preparing mentors for their role is essential. Though most research tells us that you cannot teach or train someone how to be a mentor, there is tremendous value in preparing mentors for their upcoming experience through self-reflection, setting expectations, and discussion.
Ultimately, mentors will learn and develop their skills while they are mentoring. For this reason, in addition to preparing mentors for their role, it is critical to create a supportive and inclusive community to support mentors during their mentoring experience.
This “Mentoring Training Toolkit” distills what was
The field of ecology is poised to substantially contribute to the creation of a socially and environmentally equitable urban future. To realize this contribution, the field of ecology must create strategies that ensure inclusion of underrepresented minorities so that a broad array of experiences and ideas collectively address challenges inherent to a sustainable urban future. Despite efforts to recruit and retain underrepresented racial minorities (URM) in the sciences, graduation rates have only slightly increased over the last several decades. While research mentoring programs at the
This project specifically addresses the SMRB’s imperative that “NIH’s pre-college STEM activities need a rejuvenated integrated focus on biomedical workforce preparedness with special considerations for under-represented minorities.”
Approximately one-third of CityLab’s participants are under-represented minority (URM) students, but we now have a unique opportunity to build a program that will reach many URM students and position them for undergraduate STEM success. We have partnered with urban squash education organizations in Boston (SquashBusters) and New York (CitySquash and StreetSquash) that recruit URM/low SES students to participate in after-school squash training and academic enrichment programs. We have also partnered with the Squash + Education Alliance (previously named the National Urban Squash and Education Association) to disseminate the new program—first from Boston to New York and later through its national network of affiliated squash education programs.
In order to bring this project to fruition, Boston University is joining forces with Fordham University in New York. Fordham is home to CitySquash so these organizations provide an ideal base for the New York activities. The proposed project will enable us to demonstrate feasibility and replicability within the 5-year scope of this grant. Our shared vision is to develop a national model for informal precollege biomedical science education that can be infused into a myriad of similar athletic/academic enrichment programs.
The squash education movement for urban youth has been highly successful in enrolling program graduates in college. Since the academic offerings of the squash education programs focus on English Language Arts and Mathematics, their students struggle with science and rarely recognize the tremendous opportunities for long- term employment in STEM fields.
This project will bring CityLab’s resources to local squash programs in a coordinated and sustained engagement to introduce students to STEM, specifically the biomedical sciences. Together with the urban squash centers, we will build upon the hands-on life science experiences developed and widely disseminated by CityLab to create engaging laboratory-based experiences involving athletics and physiology.
The specific aims of the proposed project are:
To develop, implement, and evaluate a new partnership model for recruiting URM/low SES students and inspiring them to pursue careers in STEM; and
To examine changes in the science learner identities (SLI) of the students who participate in this program and establish this metric as a marker for continued engagement in STEM.
With the involvement of the two urban research universities, three local squash education programs, and SEA, we see this new SEPA initiative as a unique way to pilot, refine, and disseminate an after-school/informal science education program that can have a significant impact on the nation’s production of talented STEM graduates from URM/low SES backgrounds.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Carl FranzblauDonald DeRosaCarla Romney
Cities are facing new demands as their urban populations rapidly grow. Smart City initiatives are being developed to address issues of mobility, infrastructure, security, and safety, while enhancing the quality of life of citizens. One-size-fits-all solutions are not viable. Instead, the diversity of a city's residents, including life experiences, cultural backgrounds, needs, and behaviors, must be taken into account to achieve transformative, citizen-centered solutions. Engineers, scientists, policy makers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders must be prepared to tackle future Smart City challenges, and address knowledge barriers in understanding the needs of citizens across age, occupation, financial standing, disability, and technology savviness. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the Arizona State University addresses this need by training the next generation of MS and PhD students for careers in Smart Cities-related fields. The project anticipates training thirty-eight (38) MS and PhD students, including twenty-four (24) funded trainees, from the following degree programs: Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology; Public Affairs; Computer Science; Civil, Environmental, and Sustainable Engineering; Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering; and Applied Engineering Programs. In addition to trainees, it is envisioned that over 300 other MS and PhD students in STEM disciplines will participate in opportunities made available through this traineeship. The knowledge and technologies developed from this project will contribute toward improving the quality of life for all of society through interdisciplinary, citizen-centered Smart City solutions.
An integrated education-research-practice model focused on the technological, societal, and environmental research aspects of citizen-centered solutions for Smart Cities will be employed to instill trainees with transdisciplinary skills and knowledge through cross-disciplinary courses; experience with leading collaborative, use-inspired research projects; applied learning through internships with partners and teaching opportunities; research experiences through service learning and leadership; and entrepreneurial education. Trainees will pursue research thrusts in Citizen-Centered Design; Smart City Infrastructure and Dynamics; and Socio-Environmental Practices and Policies. These thrusts are embedded in integrative priority application areas of Transportation and Accessibility; Safety, Security, and Risk Reduction; and Engagement and Education. Research efforts will significantly advance data-enabled citizen engagement; urban informatics; Internet-of-Things technologies; inclusion and accessibility; urban infrastructure; transportation systems; cybersecurity; swarm robotics; urban sustainability; quality of life and equity for citizens; hazards management and risk reduction; and societal concerns and ethics of emerging Smart City technologies. Focused efforts will be made to recruit underrepresented minorities, women, and individuals with disabilities, in order to tap underutilized talent, equip them to address the needs of their communities, and increase involvement of these groups in Smart Cities-related fields.
The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Michael KennedyRam PendyalaCynthia SelinAnn McKennaTroy McDanielGail-Joon AhnSethuraman Panchanathan
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), in collaboration with New York University's Institute for Education and Social Policy and the University of Southern Maine Center for Evaluation and Policy, will develop and evaluate a new teacher education program model to prepare science teachers through a partnership between a world class science museum and high need schools in metropolitan New York City (NYC). This innovative pilot residency model was approved by the New York State (NYS) Board of Regents as part of the state’s Race To The Top award. The program will prepare a total of 50 candidates in two cohorts (2012 and 2013) to earn a Board of Regents-awarded Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree with a specialization in Earth Science for grades 7-12. The program focuses on Earth Science both because it is one of the greatest areas of science teacher shortages in urban areas and because AMNH has the ability to leverage the required scientific and educational resources in Earth Science and allied disciplines, including paleontology and astrophysics.
The proposed 15-month, 36-credit residency program is followed by two additional years of mentoring for new teachers. In addition to a full academic year of residency in high-needs public schools, teacher candidates will undertake two AMNH-based clinical summer residencies; a Museum Teaching Residency prior to entering their host schools, and a Museum Science Residency prior to entering the teaching profession. All courses will be taught by teams of doctoral-level educators and scientists.
The project’s research and evaluation components will examine the factors and outcomes of a program offered through a science museum working with the formal teacher preparation system in high need schools. Formative and summative evaluations will document all aspects of the program. In light of the NYS requirement that the pilot program be implemented in high-need, low-performing schools, this project has the potential to engage, motivate and improve the Earth Science achievement and interest in STEM careers of thousands of students from traditionally underrepresented populations including English language learners, special education students, and racial minority groups. In addition, this project will gather meaningful data on the role science museums can play in preparing well-qualified Earth Science teachers. The research component will examine the impact of this new teacher preparation model on student achievement in metropolitan NYC schools. More specifically, this project asks, "How do Earth Science students taught by first year AMNH MAT Earth Science teachers perform academically in comparison with students taught by first year Earth Science teachers not prepared in the AMNH program?.”
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Maritza MacdonaldMeryle WeinsteinRosamond KinzlerMordecai-Mark Mac LowEdmond MathezDavid Silvernail
This longitudinal research study will contribute to a broader understanding of the pathways of STEM-interested high school students from underrepresented groups who plan to pursue or complete science studies in their post-high school endeavors. The project will investigate the ways that formative authentic science experiences may support youth's persistence in STEM. The study focuses on approximately 900 urban youth who are high interest, high potential STEM students who participate in, or are alumni of, the Science Research Mentoring Program. This program provides intensive mentoring for high school youth from groups underrepresented in STEM careers. It takes place at 17 sites around New York City, including American Museum of Natural History, which is the original program site. Identifying key supports and obstacles in the pathways of high-interest, under-represented youth towards STEM careers can help practitioners design more inclusive and equitable STEM learning experiences and supports. In this way, the project will capitalize on student interest so that students with potential continue to persist.
In order to understand better the factors that influence these students, this research combines longitudinal social network and survey data with interviews and case studies, as well as an analysis of matched student data from New York City Public Schools' records. The research questions in the study are a) how do youths' social networks develop through their participation in scientists' communities of practice? b) what is the relationship between features of the communities of practice and youths' social networks, measures of academic achievement, and youths' pursuit of a STEM major? and c) what are the variations in youth pathways in relationship to learner characteristics, composition of social networks, and features of the community of practice? The research design allows for a rich, layered perspective of student pathways. In particular, by employing social network analysis, this study will reveal relational features of persistence that may be particularly critical for underrepresented youth, for whom STEM role models and cultural brokers provide an otherwise unavailable sense of belonging and identity in STEM. The study will also access a New York City Public Schools data set comprised of student-level records containing biographical and demographic variables, secondary and postsecondary course enrollment and grades, exam scores, persistence/graduation indicators, linked responses to post-secondary surveys, and post-education employment records and wages. These data enable examination of inter-relationships between in-school achievement and out-of-school STEM experiences through comparison of program participants to similar non-participant peers. This project is supported by NSF's EHR Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field.