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

作为一项总体战略的一部分，旨在发展对有助于K-12学生动机和参与STEM的最佳实践因素、背景和过程的理解，ITEST计划资助基础和应用研究项目，以培养学生对STEM和STEM相关职业的认识。这个ITEST战略项目，支持与水(水科学)的合作探究、工程和职业探索，让中学生围绕他们所在社区的水资源进行基于项目的学习。通过创新地使用技术，该项目使该国不同地区的学校能够共享数据，并为教师专业学习社区的发展提供了一个论坛。该项目将现在中学里的平板电脑变成移动科学实验室，利用内置的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这个为期三年的项目，为2000多名中学生提供服务。学生将使用创新的移动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。在咨询大学导师和STEM专业人员的情况下，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向STEM专业人员提问的机会，并了解环境科学和环境保护方面的职业。作为最终的体验，学生们参与了一个角色扮演练习，其中包括模拟的水紧急情况。教师将接受超过40个小时的专业发展，以及一套课堂实践的科学和工程材料，本科生和研究生将作为导师参加。将对有目的地设计的探究、工程和职业导向活动融入中学科学教学的影响进行系统调查。探索的学生成果包括STEM职业意识和兴趣，STEM内容知识，以及与大学生和STEM专业人员发展支持性指导关系。这个项目团队由K-12课程和教育技术发展(协和联盟)、环境可持续性(亚利桑那州立大学)、淡水科学和保护(斯特劳德水资源中心)和实践工程教育(机器科学公司)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。

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.