Developing an Interdisciplinary Urban Environmental Science Curriculum as a Recruitment Mechanism for Future STEM Teachers

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This project aims to serve the national need of building capacity to prepare highly effective, certified STEM educators for high-need school districts. To achieve this goal, the project will lay the foundation for improving recruitment of undergraduates into STEM teaching careers. An innovative component of the project is its plan to engage students in ecological studies specific to inner-city neighborhoods. This urban environmental science component is expected to provide a “living laboratory” that can help students see the relevance of science to their daily lives. It will also provide an innovative way to learn STEM concepts, to expose students in entry level STEM classes to potential careers in STEM teaching, and to inspire future teachers. The outcomes of this capacity building project will lay the foundation for a future Noyce Teacher Scholarships and Stipends (Track 1) proposal. This project at Iona College includes partnerships with Westchester Community College and the high-need New Rochelle School District. The project’s long-term goal is to increase the number of highly qualified STEM teachers in high-need school districts in New York. The specific aims are to: evaluate factors that impede student enrollment in STEM education; develop a recruitment pipeline with high-need school districts and local two-year colleges; enhance partnerships with local schools for future student teacher placements; and develop an urban environmental science module that will be integrated into introductory chemistry and biology courses. The urban environmental science module is intended to be an interdisciplinary approach for teaching STEM topics in a way that is relevant and interesting to students. Thus, the module may be implemented or adapted by other institutions to achieve similar goals. This Capacity Building project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce). The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 STEM teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. It also supports research on the persistence, retention, and effectiveness of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.