Hello!  I am Margaret Baguio, Principal Investigator for NASA's STEM Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) high school intern program and Program Manager for Education and Outreach for the Texas Space Grant Consortium at The University of Texas Center for Space Research in Austin, Texas. I have worked for over forty years in youth development and education. During that time, I have worked in the public schools, for the Texas Cooperative Extension Service 4-H & Youth Development Program, managed a USDA Science and Literacy project for at-risk youth, and promoted space education to students, teachers and the general public through the Texas Space Grant Consortium with curriculum, professional development, science nights, and career exploration.

I had the good fortune of being recognized for our outstanding leadership and contributions to education in the past, receiving the national Alan B. Shepard Technology in Education Award in 2016, selected as a NASA Solar System Ambassador, and as a teacher liaison for the Space Foundation.  Each of these experiences has provided new opportunities, curriculum, and resources that I can share with teachers and students.

The SEES high school intern program provides outstanding 10th and 11th grade students from across the nation the opportunity to participate in an immersive experience where they are mentored by a NASA subject matter expert, conducting authentic research.  Students prepare for the on-site internship by completing 60-90 hours of remote work to prepare them for the on-site experience at The University of Texas at Austin for two weeks in the summer.  The students experience life on a college campus, hear directly from NASA subject matter experts, participate in experiential learning activities, and conduct research.  Projects vary based on the needs from project scientists and engineers.  The internship climax is a poster presentation and live-streamed presentation about their research.

Our ultimate goal is to increase interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math for students from diverse backgrounds in the hopes more will seek degrees in STEM in college which will lead to future careers in that field.  Since participating in the SEES internship, all students have majored in STEM, interned while in college at NASA and many aerospace industries, worked in summers at technology companies, and continued their path toward futures in STEM fields.

I am interested in learning about other projects that provide high school students the opportunity to conduct authentic research.  What methods do you use for recruiting and engaging subject matter experts?  How do you select high school interns for research projects?  What evaluation mechanisms do you have in place to provide data on the engagement and value of conducting authentic research in high school students?

Thank you for watching the video, produced by a former SEES intern currently majoring in Aerospace Engineering!

Enjoyed watching your video as it addresses an important aspect of education and that is hands-on experience. Kids always ask why am I studying this or how will I ever use this. The University of Cincinnati has a similar program for teachers where the teachers work on a research project during the summer and develop a lesson for their students they could bring into the classroom. This made the teachers more aware of technology and how it might be applied with their students. So the question might be "How can you engage the teachers who can then engage their students with these hands-on experiences." Great job thanks for your efforts.

This was a great window into the SEES experience and the array of students you all engage in the program. I love hearing the testimonials! The discussion above about your work with teachers is also helpful. I agree that for those of us working outside of schools it's essential to support the educators spending time with students every day. While we often can provide the invaluable spark, they are the ones who have to fan the flame. Thanks for the video and the great work!

I really enjoyed this video and seeing some of the students' impressions first-hand. How are you adapting to COVID-19? Will you run the program remotely this summer? 

What an impact this project has had on so many students! And what a rare and unique opportunity you provide for them.

What thoughts have you had about engaging 10th and 11th grade students who have yet to be identified as "outstanding"? What are your criteria for participation? It's too rare that students get to engage in authentic problems within school buildings, and you've demonstrated their formative power through your project. Have students who find conventional schooling rather unengaging found themselves to be outstanding through participation in your project? That would be a remarkable achievement.

Thanks again for your work. These testimonials speak to the differences you're making in people's live.

Thank you for watching the video.  These students are truly amazing.  It is interesting that what we thought would be a negative has turned into a positive for the summer programs this year.  We are moving all projects to a virtual platform.  Students will continue to do 30-60 hours of remote work prior to  beginning their research.  Due to COVID19 we are adding virtual projects for students to identify NASA sensors, missions, and data that will assist in the research about the pandemic and brainstorm ideas on how to mitigate some of the issues we are seeing as a result.  It will be interesting to see how the students respond.

Great thread of questions and responses, Margaret. I was fascinated at the openness of the selection process. How much do the students know about the projects they'll be working on as they apply? Are there options once they're selected? Do the mentors have a role in the students' assignments? Hearing all the student voices was a real treat!

The projects are all listed on our website, along with a description.  While each gives a general idea of the project, there is more explanation as they are selected.  The student chooses their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice for projects.  We try to give them their first choice but that isn't always possible.  We had over 600 applications for the 60 on-site internship positions this summer.  Their are two educators that review each application to narrow it to the top 100.  These are then reviewed and ranked by the science team.  We then divide according to project choices.  This summer is different as we are virtual.  The project mentors guide all research and final selections.  The 60 will participate in the traditional projects and we have added projects that are related to the COVID19 response and the Mosquito Mapper project.  For COVID19 response, students will work in groups based around a topic, brainstorm ideas for solving the problem, and then identify NASA sensors, satellite data, and missions that may provide data to assist in their recommendations.  We added the Mosquito Mapper project as a virtual option last year with 125 participants.  These students learned how to identify Zika and West Nile mosquito larvae and populated the database on where it was located and the conditions in which it was found.  

Have you had experience with mentors guiding student research in the past?

Hi Margaret, I have some experience with mentor-guided student research, but not at the scale at which you are operating. It is impressive that you are able to place so many students with mentors. It must clearly be a win-win. How do you engage mentors? How do you support them? Do you have a structure that guides the mentor in terms of expectations? That has been a challenge for me in some instances--kind of in the way back machine--there was a lot of variability in what mentors thought made a quality internship.

Our mentors are a mixture of NASA subject matter experts and college professors with NASA-funded research.  Depending on their funding levels we do provide some financial support.  We recruit them through our past relationships and recommendations from our NASA partners.  We provide a mentor packet that explains expectations, deadlines, and schedule.  We have a schedule that has worked for us.  We meet with mentors to select projects in the fall, advertise and open applications for students in November, deadline for applications is March, judging of student applications in March/April while mentors are developing additional details on their specific projects, selection of students in April, and then May the entire team meets every couple of weeks to stay on track.  This year is unusual due to us moving all projects to virtual.  That has been a challenge.  

It’s good to see you have taken steps to promote diversity among your student participants.  Nevertheless, your selection criteria ( essays, prior course work, video, etc.) still indicates your participants are already highly motivated to pursue  a STEM career.  Do you follow your students after high school to evaluate the impact of SEES

Students contact us for letters of recommendation as they apply for college, internships, and fellowships.  In addition, students are happy to share their accomplishments and successes.  Statistics show that over 90% have gone on to major in STEM in college.  Our first group is graduating from college this year.  It does warm my heart to hear of their success.

Thanks for bringing this is a great opportunity for students.  Students in the video mentioned research... What kind of research are they doing?  And, to the project, what are the research objectives of this project? Outcomes? etc. 

Although this might be lengthy, the following is a list of projects.  Because we are moving to virtual projects this summer we are adding four additional projects dealing with COVID19 and how NASA missions, sensors, and data may help with this research.  Outcomes are based on scientists field of study.  Each team presents a poster and final oral presentation which is live-streamed about their research and results.

 

DISASTER RESEARCH WITH MAGIC (MID-AMERICAN GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION CENTER)

DISASTER MAP: USING SATELLITES FOR EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
Interns will focus on a recent flood, wildfire, or tropical storm event, review satellite image datasets from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the US Geological Survey (USGS) collected before, during and after the event, and test best practices for rapid information extraction from these data. We will use image analysis and investigate related geospatial information resources with the goal of creating and distributing products for emergency response applications and societal benefit.

FLOOD RESPONSE
Interns will compare National Weather Service Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (QPE) products derived from Radar with rainfall gauge values collected in the same time and space. This will provide ground truth evidence of estimations compared to captured rain totals. Interns will also develop Python scripts to automate the transformation of QPE point data into an interpolated gridded surface that can be tiled for rapid consumption by web-based mapping applications via rest endpoints. Activities will simulate recent flood events with the goal of improving future flood response scenarios.

CLIMATE RESEARCH WITH CSR (CENTER FOR SPACE RESEARCH)

WEIGHING WHERE THE WATER GOES
Interns will analyze data from GRACE (Gravity Recover and Climate Experiment), twin satellites launched in March 2002, that are making detailed measurements of Earth's gravity field changes and revolutionizing investigations about Earth’s water resources over land, ice, and oceans, as well as earthquakes and crustal deformations. These discoveries are having far-reaching benefits to society and the world's population.

MEASURING ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES WITH ALTIMETRY
Interns will examine altimetry measurements over ice caps, forests, and other areas of the Earth using data from ICESat (2003-2009), ICESat-2 (2018-), and other satellites. Analyses will include data visualization, satellite calibration, and comparisons with complementary measurements and may include ice sheets (Greenland, Antarctica), sea ice, land, vegetation, and ocean/water surfaces. Investigations of some primary questions surrounding the missions include how to link the data from the missions and how to optimally compute changes over time.

MISSION DESIGN

OBSERVING EARTH FROM SPACE
This engineering project will immerse interns in NASA content and activities while learning about rockets, spacecraft trajectories, and observing the Earth from space. While tackling this engineering project, interns will learn about the Sun-Earth-Moon system dynamics, power systems, and communication while designing the mission. Students will design student payloads for the CANDEL satellite system. The students will also have the opportunity to suggest improvements to the CANDEL system itself. Each participating student will, as part of their work, will design an experiment for the CANDEL system.

EXPLORE THE MOON
Interns will study the spectral effects of space weathering and impact gardening on the evolution of the lunar soil using remote sensing data. Understanding the effects from these processes improves the ability to map the true composition of planetary crusts.

MARS EXPLORATION
NASA is committed to the human exploration of Mars. Many of the technologies are already in place, and the rocket boosters and some of the spacecraft required are currently being built. The small nuclear reactors required to provide the necessary power have already been designed and tested by the Department of Energy. But prior to sending humans to Mars, there needs to be the infrastructure on the planet surface that is necessary to sustain the first crews to visit. This includes power, habitation, water, food, health maintenance, mobility (space suits and rovers), emergency care, and scientific support functions. Using basic engineering design principles, interns will design a Mars village that will allow people to live and work productively and safely for up to 1000 days on the Mars surface. Small scale prototypes will be built by 3D printing.

ROVING MARS AND MARS 2020
As the newest NASA rover prepares for its trip to the red planet, scientists have begun to plan for returning the first ever surface samples from Mars. This project will explore how the Mars 2020 rover will traverse the landing site of Jezero Crater and students will come up with a sampling strategy. We will learn how geologist on Earth prioritize samples and develop a plan to return the most valuable samples from Mars.

VIRTUAL MOSQUITO MAPPER

Scientists working with GLOBE Observer are leading a Virtual High School Summer Research Internship in 2020. Participants will meet regularly with mentor scientists online and complete a guided 8 week research experience that engages participants in all aspects of the scientific process, while building familiarity with the GLOBE Observer data collection app, NASA Worldview satellite data portal, and data analysis and mapping tools, including Google Earth and ArcGIS. Interns in this program will contribute to both an individual and a team research product focused on GeoHealth, contributing to our understanding of many aspects of science including mosquito population dynamics, environmental change and human health.

Great list. I can see why students would be motivated. How much attention is given to the audiences for the work? I ask because many times students are asked to think about people their own age/background/positionality. That works up to a point. I wonder if the students see the potential of their work for different audiences, and audiences different from them.

Dear Margaret,

As the mom of one of your former interns, now Rice University Class of 2022, I want you to thank you for your indefatigable devotion to this program.  My daughter has stayed in touch with her group despite their coast (Princeton) to coast (Stanford) destinations.  The SEES experience was invaluable.  Thank you for being a STEM Shero!

As a prior NASA Aerospace Education Specialist out of Goddard, and a NASA Graduate Student Research Fellow out of Langley (that funded my Ph.D. work in education), I can say with first hand knowledge how powerful and compelling the context of working on authentic projects for NASA is. It is AWESOME that you have achieved such a large scale of applicants (600 for 60 spots-for onsite internships). Your comprehensive and robust answers really help others learn how they too might learn from your expertise and experiences. Kudos.

I'm now at Virginia Commonwealth University, and forging collaboration with both the education teams working with Kimberly Brush at Langley and Joyce Winterton at Wallops. We are embarking on some efforts hopefully to begin this summer (probably virtual now).

Is it possible to see or learn more about the NASA career exploration product that was used in your schools to open students' eyes to Careers at NASA. The diversity of students is high in the surrounding schools in Richmond, Virginia. This would be a valuable component to aid our efforts if publicly available?

Keep up the wonderful and important work!

Thanks so much for the kind remarks.  I am happy to send you a link to the Career Exploration box with all products that were developed.  We have a Career Exploration game similar to monopoly, a slide show were students can look at a NASA career, click on it and view what type of degree is required, and includes more information on the cost of that degree at various institutions, a next generation spacesuit listing all components and what careers are needed to complete it.  Please email me:  baguio@csr.utexas.edu and I'm happy to share.

I'm one of the past teacher mentors for the SEES program and have always marveled at 3 things:

1. the enthusiasm and dedication of the students and the amazing work they produce

2. The dedication of the entire group of scientists/engineers, admin, graduate students, Margaret, and everyone involved with this project

3.the interest displayed in the results of the students' work at the end of the project when they present to basically the entire faculty, who ask hard hitting questions, take notes, and are obviously interested in what these young students did. 

As a high school teacher it was an amazing experience for me and I know 2 of my students went through the program and are doing amazing things at college. I'm so jealous :-)

I have to thank Margaret again for letting me be a part of this program because while the students were definitely enriched by the experience, SSI was I and I translate that back directly into my Physics and Astronomy classes. 

Thank YOU for being such a great facilitator and mentor.  Yes, I do agree, the SEES interns are amazing!

What an amazing impact - nice work!

Thank you so much.  These are amazing students!