Strategies: Water SCIENCE: Supporting Collaborative Inquiry, Engineering, and Career Exploration with Water

策略：水科学：支持水的协作探究、工程和职业探索

• 批准号: 1433761
• 负责人: Carolyn Staudt
• 金额: $ 119.96万
• 依托单位: Concord Consortium
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-10-01 至 2017-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1433761&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Strategies; Water; SCIENCE; Supporting; Collaborative

As part of an overall strategy to develop understandings of best practice factors, contexts and processes contributing to K-12 students' motivation and participation in STEM, the ITEST Program funds foundational and applied research projects that build student awareness of STEM and STEM-related careers. This ITEST Strategies project, Supporting Collaborative Inquiry, Engineering, and Career Exploration with Water (Water SCIENCE), engages middle school students in project-based learning around their community's water resources. Through the innovative use of technology the project enables data sharing among schools in different parts of the country and provides a forum for the development of a professional learning community for teachers. The project turns tablet computers now found in secondary schools into mobile science labs, harnessing the built-in cameras for chemical and visual analysis of water samples.A total of 30 middle school science teachers from diverse districts in southern Arizona, southeastern Pennsylvania, and Eastern Massachusetts are participating serving more than 2000 middle school students over the three-year project. Students will use an innovative mobile lab to perform water quality analysis and aggregate the results on an existing data sharing platform. In consultation with university mentors and stem professionals, students design and conduct classroom engineering projects that model real-world technologies for improving water quality. Virtual mentoring sessions provide opportunities for students to ask questions of STEM professionals and learn about careers in environmental science and conservation. As a culminating experience students engage in a role-playing exercise involving a simulated water emergency. Teachers will receive over 40 hours of professional development as well as a classroom set of hands-on science and engineering materials undergraduate and graduate students will participate as mentors. A systematic investigation of the impact of integrating purposefully designed inquiry, engineering, and career orientation activities into science instruction at the middle school level will be conducted. Student outcomes explored include stem career awareness and interests, stem content knowledge, and the development of supportive mentoring relationships with university students and stem professionals. Comprehensive data will be collected using a variety of research instruments and analyzed both statistically and qualitatively.This project team is comprised of specialists in K-12 curriculum and educational technology development (Concord Consortium), environmental sustainability (Arizona State University), freshwater science and conservation (Stroud Water Resource Center), and hands-on engineering education (Machine Science, Inc.). The Water SCIENCE project helps advance NSF's goal of broadening participation and diversifying the STEM workforce.

作为整体战略的一部分，以发展最佳实践因素的理解，有助于K-12学生的动机和参与STEM的背景和过程，ITEST计划资助基础和应用研究项目，建立学生对STEM和STEM相关职业的认识。这个ITEST战略项目，支持与水（水科学）的协作探究，工程和职业探索，让中学生围绕社区的水资源进行基于项目的学习。通过创新地使用技术，该项目使全国不同地区的学校能够共享数据，并为教师发展专业学习社区提供了一个论坛。该项目将目前在中学使用的平板电脑变成移动的科学实验室，利用内置摄像头对水样进行化学和视觉分析。来自亚利桑那州南部、宾夕法尼亚州东南部和马萨诸塞州东部不同地区的30名中学科学教师参与了该项目，在三年的时间里为2000多名中学生提供服务。学生将使用创新的移动的实验室进行水质分析，并在现有的数据共享平台上汇总结果。在与大学导师和科学、技术和工程专业人士的磋商中，学生们设计和实施课堂工程项目，模拟现实世界中改善水质的技术。虚拟辅导课程为学生提供了向STEM专业人士提问并了解环境科学和保护职业的机会。作为一个高潮的经验，学生参与角色扮演演习，涉及模拟水紧急情况。教师将获得超过40小时的专业发展，以及一套课堂实践科学和工程材料，本科生和研究生将作为导师参加。将有目的地设计的调查，工程和职业导向活动整合到中学水平的科学教学的影响进行了系统的调查。学生的成果探讨包括干职业意识和兴趣，干内容的知识，并与大学生和干专业人士的支持指导关系的发展。该项目由K-12课程和教育技术开发（Concord Consortium）、环境可持续性（Arizona州立大学）、淡水科学和保护（Stroud Water Resource Center）、工程实践教育（Machine Science，Inc.）等领域的专家组成。水科学项目有助于推进NSF扩大参与和使STEM劳动力多样化的目标。