The University of West Florida (UWF)-Teach program has for the past three years provided opportunities for twelve weeks during the summer for its Noyce Scholars to engage in research with STEM faculty and develop the outcomes of their engagement into citizen science lesson plans for middle or high school students under the supervision of a high school science teacher. In the summer of 2021, two Noyce Scholars - one Environmental Science Teaching and one Mathematics Teaching - worked with a UWF Environmental Science faculty on research related to sand dunes at Pensacola Beach. For the first six weeks, the scholars met with their STEM faculty and took a trip to Pensacola Beach in order to familiarize themselves with the research related to sand dunes. For the remaining six weeks of the summer, the scholars worked directly with a high school science teacher to develop citizen science based lesson plans for each of their respective disciplines. All throughout the process, the Noyce scholars were mentored and supported by a graduate Noyce Scholar who had just completed their first year of teaching and who had engaged in the summer professional development during their tenure as a Noyce scholar. The scholars gained valuable insights about lesson plan development from working collaboratively with each other and have been able to mutually support each other in their teacher development journeys beyond their summer professional development experience.
Citizen Science, PD Models, Mentoring
Inst for Biomed Philos, Pensacola State Coll, UWF
Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (NOYCE)
Related Content for Developing STEM Teachers Through Interdisciplinary Research
great idea about integrating math and science. does that integration happen in pre-service training of teachers? do the high-school students and undergraduate teachers in training work together on the dunes?
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Lead Presenter Assistant Professor
May 9, 2022 | 11:40 p.m.
Hi Connie,
Thanks for your question. This particular integration happened in the pre-service training of teachers. Integration is a desired outcome but not always possible dependent on the Noyce scholars up for the professional development experience each summer. For example this summer, we have a Biology teaching scholar and an Environmental Science teaching scholar so the experience will be interdisciplinary. Other summers we have had scholars of the same major working together. We are not able to work directly with high school or middle school students because they are out for the summer. Our goal is that our scholars will implement these lessons in their own classrooms. We have recently had discussions about implementing these lessons with secondary school students towards the end of their school years, in-between testing and when school finally lets out.
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Lead Presenter Assistant Professor
May 9, 2022 | 11:26 p.m.
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to our video. We are the PIs and Evaluators of the University of West Florida (UWF)-Teach program which prepares STEM majors to be secondary school STEM teachers in high needs school districts. Our program receives funding by the Robert Noyce Teacher Preparation Program. One summer before graduation, our students who receive scholarships (Noyce Scholars) engage in a research project with a STEM faculty to turn their research engagement into a citizen science classroom lesson under the guidance of a high school teacher and the mentorship of an alumni Noyce Scholar who would be at least a first-year teacher. This video presents the outcome of an interdisciplinary collaboration between two Noyce Scholars - one Math Teaching and one Environmental Science Teaching - on this professional development activity. Their final product can be found at the bottom of this page under the heading Analyzing Sand Dunes Utilizing the Pythagorean Theorem and Estimating Vegetation Percentages. Some questions to frame discussion on our video are:
What has been your experience conducting interdisciplinary collaborations for pre-service teachers, teachers, university students, or secondary (middle or high) school students?
What are some challenges you have experienced teaching or research with citizen science orientations or outcomes? How have you addressed or overcome some of these challenges?
What are some of the ways we can make STEM more accessible for all students?
1
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"... when you talk about scientists, mathematicians,... even those big words will throw people because 'I can never do that'..." This is at the crux of why some, especially underrepresented minorities, do not embrace the STEM fields. Dr. Hailee Hawkins could not have said it any better. This is a cool and fantastic project. Kudos to the team! I voted!!
By the way, I like Dr. Kwame's attire... proudly African!
2
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Neela White
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Lead Presenter Assistant Professor
May 10, 2022 | 11:20 a.m.
Thanks Dayo! Hailee's line is definitely my favorite line in the entire video. Thanks for voting and for the compliment on my clothing. I try to represent as best I can :)
Hi Kwame, great video and project! Thanks for your discussion question about challenges of research with citizen science orientations or outcomes. One thing that has come up for us is in investigating youth activism as an outcome, and understanding what exactly science activism looks like. What were some of the outcomes you investigated or that emerged from your project?
Thanks so much for commenting on our video - and I immensely enjoyed your project. You had me at "community science" and "social justice". The outcomes that we were investigating for our scholars were collaboration and critical thinking. Those outcomes were achieved. We are hoping the scholars can achieve like outcomes for their students when they implement the lessons in their own classrooms.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Co-Presenter Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
May 10, 2022 | 08:27 p.m.
Hi Sarah,
The citizen science project is imbedded within a larger Noyce Scholars project. We examine a number of constructs with the students over time including teacher identity, and teaching self-efficacy as well as their interest in teaching in high needs schools and in working with underserved students. Participation in the citizen science project increased their interest in teaching, increased their interest in teaching underserved students, and increased their interest in teaching in highneeds schools. They also reported that they plan to implement the project in their classrooms with some students planning to modify it in someway prior to implementation.
take care,
Melissa
Mawuli Amedofu
Researcher
May 11, 2022 | 09:35 a.m.
Great initiative. Integrating science and mathematics and connecting the dots with real life application. Congrats to the team.
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Lead Presenter Assistant Professor
May 11, 2022 | 09:48 a.m.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting Mawuli! Much appreciated! I still need to get our planning up and running again!
Great project! I especially loved the teacher saying that this project gives her students an ability to apply what they learn in class in the real world, to understand WHY they are learning things in class in a concrete way. My questions for you: 1) How have you tied the high school curriculum into your program and 2) how were you able to help teachers understand the value of doing projects that span disciplines when they are so siloed at the high school level? As a scientist, I personally understand that science, math, and literacy are all highly interdependent in the sciences, but I've found it complicated to pass that along to students through teachers given the siloing they experience at their schools. For that matter, I had a hard time convincing even the upper division college students I taught that you need all three together to be a successful scientist!
1
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Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Lead Presenter Assistant Professor
May 11, 2022 | 11:08 a.m.
Thanks Christine! We tie the curriculum into our program by requiring our Noyce Scholars to make sure that their citizen science lesson plans align with state standards. They also have the opportunity for student teaching experiences under the mentorship of a cooperating teacher prior to graduation. To answer your second question, we have engaged with teachers in our district who are engaged in this type of interdisciplinary work to serve as mentors to our scholars during their summer classroom lesson development experience. As such they are able to pass on this integrated thinking to our scholars. The process of engaging in this interdisciplinary research itself also passes along the need because as in the case of this video topic - the scholars realized they could not have answered the question at hand individually but needed each other's disciplines to get at the core of the issues. Learning by doing to sum it up! Really great question!
Ann Cavallo
Facilitator Assistant Vice Provost and Director
May 11, 2022 | 04:16 p.m.
Nice project and video! What are the metrics you measure in your evaluation plan? Do you know to what extent the new teachers use the experience in this project and/or maintain/stream the citizen science practices in their teaching? Does your program gather data/information on how the experiences transformed (enhanced?) their STEM and interdisciplinary concept understandings?
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Lead Presenter Assistant Professor
May 12, 2022 | 11:15 a.m.
Hi Ann,
Thanks so much for your question. Melissa our external evaluator would be best poised to answer your question. Her response to Sarah's question earlier captures most of the components you are asking about so I'll post again for quicker reference "We examine a number of constructs with the students over time including teacher identity, and teaching self-efficacy as well as their interest in teaching in high needs schools and in working with underserved students. Participation in the citizen science project increased their interest in teaching, increased their interest in teaching underserved students, and increased their interest in teaching in high-needs schools. They also reported that they plan to implement the project in their classrooms with some students planning to modify it in someway prior to implementation." Thanks again and I'll let Melissa shed any further insights she would like to add. The quoted information is typically garnered via annual surveys, focus groups, and interviews. Sincerely, Kwame
1
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Ann Cavallo
Ann Cavallo
Facilitator Assistant Vice Provost and Director
May 15, 2022 | 12:43 p.m.
Thank you! Very nice program and meaningful/useful for your Scholars. The mentoring is also great for building community.
1
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Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Lead Presenter Assistant Professor
May 16, 2022 | 11:44 a.m.
Thanks for your kind words Ann!
1
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Ann Cavallo
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Co-Presenter Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
May 17, 2022 | 07:31 p.m.
Hi Ann,
I believe Kwame stated our primary metrics for evaluation of this component of the Noyce project at UWF. While we do not specifically examine how the program might have enhanced their interdisciplinary concepts understanding, for some of the projects, future math and science teachers pair together to develop projects that are interdisciplinary. These students have reported that this opportunity to work across disciplines helped them to envision ways to present their own discipline more broadly and in a way that would hopefully be more engaging for their students.
take care,
Melissa
K. Renae Pullen
Facilitator Science Specialist
May 12, 2022 | 10:41 a.m.
Fascinating project! Those rubrics for assessment made my heart sing. How do you support teachers so they can make their own similar rubrics?
1
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Kwame Owusu-Daaku
John Pecore
Co-Presenter Professor
May 12, 2022 | 02:31 p.m.
Hi Renae. Thank you for the question. We have two courses (Classroom Interactions and Assessment, and STEM methods) that our teacher candidates take that include assessment rubrics. As Kwame stated, we also have graduates who are current teachers along with a veteran teacher as part of the citizen science team that mentor our current students.
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K. Renae Pullen
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Lead Presenter Assistant Professor
May 12, 2022 | 11:24 a.m.
Thanks Renae. We thought people would have questions about some of the mechanics of the classroom lesson itself hence why we sought to include the link to them! Our PI John Pecore would be best poised to answer this question. To take a stab at your question, for our Noyce Scholars, I know that they take a course that helps them develop such rubrics on their own. We also work with teachers already using similar models as mentors for our Noyce Scholars. I know that the cooperating teachers we work with between our two school districts have to take some professional development to serve as cooperating/supervising teachers. I believe we go over some of this assessment with them. I am not entirely sure about this part. I am sure though that our Noyce Scholars are prepared to teach with such rubrics by the time they graduate. Sincerely, Kwame
1
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K. Renae Pullen
Jason Ortegren
Higher Ed Faculty
May 13, 2022 | 09:55 a.m.
I think this is a great project and video, emphasizing both the opportunities at UWF and the broader opportunities to engage a greater proportion of the public in science and science literacy. From my unbiased position (as a departmental colleague of Kwame and Phillip), this is the best project of this cycle :)
1
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Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Lead Presenter Assistant Professor
May 16, 2022 | 11:45 a.m.
Haha! Thanks for your vote of confidence Jason!
Brian Foley
Facilitator Professor
May 15, 2022 | 12:16 p.m.
You had me at sand dunes and Pythagorean Theorem! That is so nerdy. Just the thing to help kids see the math and science around them. The conservation angle is very important. There are so many issues all around us - especially with environmental justice. Having students investigate them empowers them with the knowledge that they can do something about the problems.
1
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Dr. Owusu-Daaku, I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the University of West Florida! We had our first cohort of scholars this year and have had the interact with teachers and elementary/middle/high school students. Next year we are trying to give them more opportunities to learn interactive methods to develop lessons. Your video makes me even more excited about what we can accomplish in the future. How do you get the "buy-in" from other faculty and in-service teachers to use more "creative" lessons?
1
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Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Lead Presenter Assistant Professor
May 16, 2022 | 12:03 p.m.
Hi Ayanna,
Thanks so much for checking out our video. Congratulations on your Noyce grant funding and your first cohort of Noyce scholars! I also really enjoyed your video and your project's acronym (I am a sucker for witty acronyms!). The buy-in was really built by leaning in to in-service teachers and faculty who already employed "creative" lessons in their pedagogy to serve as brand ambassadors and mentors! They have been most helpful in building our program over time to what it is now. The project is this video is the a product of five years worth of implementation and adjusting as we moved on. I took a while to get buy-in even among faculty and faculty are often unsure of expectations but once they can see successful examples, are usually more open. Also providing funding incentives to both faculty and in-service teachers is also very helpful. To give you a sense of how we have progressed over time, please find links to our past STEMforALL video show cases:
Great initiative. Students are inspired through these experiences. I'm interested to learn about any outcomes re: percentage of participants who chose to pursue STEM majors after high school graduation.
John Pecore
Co-Presenter Professor
May 17, 2022 | 06:24 p.m.
Thanks Sandy,
Although beyond the scope of our project, this is a great question. We do have STEM majors at the university who participated in a citizen science project when they were in high school. Some of these undergraduate students assisted at their high school alma mater on other citizen science projects as undergraduate majors. One student, who went on to graduate school, assisted on a project with a high school teacher, whom she met during their time as undergraduate biology majors.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Co-Presenter Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
May 17, 2022 | 07:22 p.m.
Hi Sandy,
Thanks for your interest and question.
This project was focused on the pre-service teachers as participants. These pre-service teachers report that they plan to implement their citizen science project in the classroom with some planning to modify it in various ways. Some of the pre-service teachers were concerned with the challenges of having students taking repeated samples in the field and so plan to include other ways of gathering at least a portion of the data.
Furthermore, participation in the citizen science project increased their interest in teaching, increased their interest in teaching underserved students, and increased their interest in teaching in highneeds schools.
Connie Flanagan
great idea about integrating math and science. does that integration happen in pre-service training of teachers? do the high-school students and undergraduate teachers in training work together on the dunes?
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Assistant Professor
Hi Connie,
Thanks for your question. This particular integration happened in the pre-service training of teachers. Integration is a desired outcome but not always possible dependent on the Noyce scholars up for the professional development experience each summer. For example this summer, we have a Biology teaching scholar and an Environmental Science teaching scholar so the experience will be interdisciplinary. Other summers we have had scholars of the same major working together. We are not able to work directly with high school or middle school students because they are out for the summer. Our goal is that our scholars will implement these lessons in their own classrooms. We have recently had discussions about implementing these lessons with secondary school students towards the end of their school years, in-between testing and when school finally lets out.
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Assistant Professor
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to our video. We are the PIs and Evaluators of the University of West Florida (UWF)-Teach program which prepares STEM majors to be secondary school STEM teachers in high needs school districts. Our program receives funding by the Robert Noyce Teacher Preparation Program. One summer before graduation, our students who receive scholarships (Noyce Scholars) engage in a research project with a STEM faculty to turn their research engagement into a citizen science classroom lesson under the guidance of a high school teacher and the mentorship of an alumni Noyce Scholar who would be at least a first-year teacher. This video presents the outcome of an interdisciplinary collaboration between two Noyce Scholars - one Math Teaching and one Environmental Science Teaching - on this professional development activity. Their final product can be found at the bottom of this page under the heading Analyzing Sand Dunes Utilizing the Pythagorean Theorem and Estimating Vegetation Percentages. Some questions to frame discussion on our video are:
Allison Gonzalez
Ekundayo Shittu
"... when you talk about scientists, mathematicians,... even those big words will throw people because 'I can never do that'..." This is at the crux of why some, especially underrepresented minorities, do not embrace the STEM fields. Dr. Hailee Hawkins could not have said it any better. This is a cool and fantastic project. Kudos to the team! I voted!!
By the way, I like Dr. Kwame's attire... proudly African!
Neela White
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Assistant Professor
Thanks Dayo! Hailee's line is definitely my favorite line in the entire video. Thanks for voting and for the compliment on my clothing. I try to represent as best I can :)
Sarah Olsen
Hi Kwame, great video and project! Thanks for your discussion question about challenges of research with citizen science orientations or outcomes. One thing that has come up for us is in investigating youth activism as an outcome, and understanding what exactly science activism looks like. What were some of the outcomes you investigated or that emerged from your project?
Thanks for checking out our video on community science investigations for social justice!
Best regards,
Sarah
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Assistant Professor
Hi Sarah,
Thanks so much for commenting on our video - and I immensely enjoyed your project. You had me at "community science" and "social justice". The outcomes that we were investigating for our scholars were collaboration and critical thinking. Those outcomes were achieved. We are hoping the scholars can achieve like outcomes for their students when they implement the lessons in their own classrooms.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Hi Sarah,
The citizen science project is imbedded within a larger Noyce Scholars project. We examine a number of constructs with the students over time including teacher identity, and teaching self-efficacy as well as their interest in teaching in high needs schools and in working with underserved students. Participation in the citizen science project increased their interest in teaching, increased their interest in teaching underserved students, and increased their interest in teaching in highneeds schools. They also reported that they plan to implement the project in their classrooms with some students planning to modify it in someway prior to implementation.
take care,
Melissa
Mawuli Amedofu
Great initiative. Integrating science and mathematics and connecting the dots with real life application. Congrats to the team.
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Assistant Professor
Thanks for stopping by and commenting Mawuli! Much appreciated! I still need to get our planning up and running again!
Christine Goforth
Great project! I especially loved the teacher saying that this project gives her students an ability to apply what they learn in class in the real world, to understand WHY they are learning things in class in a concrete way. My questions for you: 1) How have you tied the high school curriculum into your program and 2) how were you able to help teachers understand the value of doing projects that span disciplines when they are so siloed at the high school level? As a scientist, I personally understand that science, math, and literacy are all highly interdependent in the sciences, but I've found it complicated to pass that along to students through teachers given the siloing they experience at their schools. For that matter, I had a hard time convincing even the upper division college students I taught that you need all three together to be a successful scientist!
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Assistant Professor
Thanks Christine! We tie the curriculum into our program by requiring our Noyce Scholars to make sure that their citizen science lesson plans align with state standards. They also have the opportunity for student teaching experiences under the mentorship of a cooperating teacher prior to graduation. To answer your second question, we have engaged with teachers in our district who are engaged in this type of interdisciplinary work to serve as mentors to our scholars during their summer classroom lesson development experience. As such they are able to pass on this integrated thinking to our scholars. The process of engaging in this interdisciplinary research itself also passes along the need because as in the case of this video topic - the scholars realized they could not have answered the question at hand individually but needed each other's disciplines to get at the core of the issues. Learning by doing to sum it up! Really great question!
Ann Cavallo
Assistant Vice Provost and Director
Nice project and video! What are the metrics you measure in your evaluation plan? Do you know to what extent the new teachers use the experience in this project and/or maintain/stream the citizen science practices in their teaching? Does your program gather data/information on how the experiences transformed (enhanced?) their STEM and interdisciplinary concept understandings?
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Assistant Professor
Hi Ann,
Thanks so much for your question. Melissa our external evaluator would be best poised to answer your question. Her response to Sarah's question earlier captures most of the components you are asking about so I'll post again for quicker reference "We examine a number of constructs with the students over time including teacher identity, and teaching self-efficacy as well as their interest in teaching in high needs schools and in working with underserved students. Participation in the citizen science project increased their interest in teaching, increased their interest in teaching underserved students, and increased their interest in teaching in high-needs schools. They also reported that they plan to implement the project in their classrooms with some students planning to modify it in someway prior to implementation." Thanks again and I'll let Melissa shed any further insights she would like to add. The quoted information is typically garnered via annual surveys, focus groups, and interviews.
Sincerely,
Kwame
Ann Cavallo
Ann Cavallo
Assistant Vice Provost and Director
Thank you! Very nice program and meaningful/useful for your Scholars. The mentoring is also great for building community.
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Assistant Professor
Thanks for your kind words Ann!
Ann Cavallo
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Hi Ann,
I believe Kwame stated our primary metrics for evaluation of this component of the Noyce project at UWF. While we do not specifically examine how the program might have enhanced their interdisciplinary concepts understanding, for some of the projects, future math and science teachers pair together to develop projects that are interdisciplinary. These students have reported that this opportunity to work across disciplines helped them to envision ways to present their own discipline more broadly and in a way that would hopefully be more engaging for their students.
take care,
Melissa
K. Renae Pullen
Science Specialist
Fascinating project! Those rubrics for assessment made my heart sing. How do you support teachers so they can make their own similar rubrics?
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
John Pecore
Professor
Hi Renae. Thank you for the question. We have two courses (Classroom Interactions and Assessment, and STEM methods) that our teacher candidates take that include assessment rubrics. As Kwame stated, we also have graduates who are current teachers along with a veteran teacher as part of the citizen science team that mentor our current students.
K. Renae Pullen
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Assistant Professor
Thanks Renae. We thought people would have questions about some of the mechanics of the classroom lesson itself hence why we sought to include the link to them! Our PI John Pecore would be best poised to answer this question. To take a stab at your question, for our Noyce Scholars, I know that they take a course that helps them develop such rubrics on their own. We also work with teachers already using similar models as mentors for our Noyce Scholars. I know that the cooperating teachers we work with between our two school districts have to take some professional development to serve as cooperating/supervising teachers. I believe we go over some of this assessment with them. I am not entirely sure about this part. I am sure though that our Noyce Scholars are prepared to teach with such rubrics by the time they graduate.
Sincerely,
Kwame
K. Renae Pullen
Jason Ortegren
I think this is a great project and video, emphasizing both the opportunities at UWF and the broader opportunities to engage a greater proportion of the public in science and science literacy. From my unbiased position (as a departmental colleague of Kwame and Phillip), this is the best project of this cycle :)
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Assistant Professor
Haha! Thanks for your vote of confidence Jason!
Brian Foley
Professor
You had me at sand dunes and Pythagorean Theorem! That is so nerdy. Just the thing to help kids see the math and science around them. The conservation angle is very important. There are so many issues all around us - especially with environmental justice. Having students investigate them empowers them with the knowledge that they can do something about the problems.
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Assistant Professor
Thanks Brian! We couldn't agree more!
Ayanna Shivers
Dr. Owusu-Daaku, I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the University of West Florida! We had our first cohort of scholars this year and have had the interact with teachers and elementary/middle/high school students. Next year we are trying to give them more opportunities to learn interactive methods to develop lessons. Your video makes me even more excited about what we can accomplish in the future. How do you get the "buy-in" from other faculty and in-service teachers to use more "creative" lessons?
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Kwame Owusu-Daaku
Assistant Professor
Hi Ayanna,
Thanks so much for checking out our video. Congratulations on your Noyce grant funding and your first cohort of Noyce scholars! I also really enjoyed your video and your project's acronym (I am a sucker for witty acronyms!). The buy-in was really built by leaning in to in-service teachers and faculty who already employed "creative" lessons in their pedagogy to serve as brand ambassadors and mentors! They have been most helpful in building our program over time to what it is now. The project is this video is the a product of five years worth of implementation and adjusting as we moved on. I took a while to get buy-in even among faculty and faculty are often unsure of expectations but once they can see successful examples, are usually more open. Also providing funding incentives to both faculty and in-service teachers is also very helpful. To give you a sense of how we have progressed over time, please find links to our past STEMforALL video show cases:
2019 video: https://stemforall2019.videohall.com/presentati...
2020 video: https://stemforall2020.videohall.com/presentati...
2021 video: https://multiplex.videohall.com/presentations/2...
Wishing you nothing but the best as you seek to be REGAL!
Sincerely,
Kwame
Sandy Mau
Great initiative. Students are inspired through these experiences. I'm interested to learn about any outcomes re: percentage of participants who chose to pursue STEM majors after high school graduation.
John Pecore
Professor
Thanks Sandy,
Although beyond the scope of our project, this is a great question. We do have STEM majors at the university who participated in a citizen science project when they were in high school. Some of these undergraduate students assisted at their high school alma mater on other citizen science projects as undergraduate majors. One student, who went on to graduate school, assisted on a project with a high school teacher, whom she met during their time as undergraduate biology majors.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Hi Sandy,
Thanks for your interest and question.
This project was focused on the pre-service teachers as participants. These pre-service teachers report that they plan to implement their citizen science project in the classroom with some planning to modify it in various ways. Some of the pre-service teachers were concerned with the challenges of having students taking repeated samples in the field and so plan to include other ways of gathering at least a portion of the data.
Furthermore, participation in the citizen science project increased their interest in teaching, increased their interest in teaching underserved students, and increased their interest in teaching in highneeds schools.
Take care,
Melissa
Further posting is closed as the event has ended.