Collaborative Research: Building Capacity to Improve STEM Education through Citizen Science by Scaling Up University-Community Partnerships

该项目旨在通过提高包括妇女和代表不足的少数群体在内的所有学生的STEM教育成果，服务于国家利益。研究表明，通过更好地将STEM内容与学生社区中更广泛的问题联系起来，可以提高STEM领域的持久性。建立这些联系的一个可行方法是通过公民科学。公民科学项目为任何人创造机会，参与收集和分析数据以支持科学项目。这样的项目有可能将科学内容和过程与与学生社区相关的现实世界问题联系起来。此外，这些项目要求学生参与主动学习，这也是众所周知的改善学生在STEM领域的学习结果。该项目是北卡罗来纳农业技术州立大学和北卡罗来纳州立大学的合作项目。它旨在为建立大学-社区合作伙伴关系奠定基础，以建立公民科学社区，将本科生的STEM学习与服务不足的社区联系起来。能力建设努力集中在三个领域：1)扩大项目规模的需求评估；2)知识和关系建设；3)信息技术基础设施。能力建设工作将针对障碍，并确定社会、组织和个人层面所需的桥梁。这一变革努力将侧重于进一步发展包容性学习环境。具体地说，该项目旨在通过提高对STEM课程内容(即知识、技能和观点)与影响服务不足社区的问题之间的关系的认识，使本科生能够更加重视他们的教育经历。NSF IUSE：EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生的STEM教育的有效性。通过机构和社区转型轨道，该计划支持高等教育机构和学科社区转变和改进STEM教育的努力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by enhancing STEM education outcomes for all students, including women and underrepresented minorities. Research suggests that increased persistence in STEM fields could be achieved by better connecting STEM content to broader issues in students’ communities. A feasible way to make these connections is through citizen science. Citizen science projects create opportunities for anyone to participate in collecting and analyzing data to support a scientific project. Such projects have the potential to link scientific content and process to real world problems that are relevant to students’ communities. Furthermore, these projects require students to engage in active learning, which is also known to improve student learning outcomes in STEM fields. This project is a collaboration between North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and North Carolina State University. It is designed to lay the foundation for establishing University-community partnerships to establish citizen science communities that connect undergraduate STEM learning to underserved communities.Capacity building efforts focus on three domains: 1) needs assessment for scaling up the project; 2) knowledge and relationship building; and 3) information technology infrastructure. Capacity building efforts will target barriers and identify bridges needed at social, organizational, and individual levels. This change effort will focus on further developing inclusive learning environments. Specifically the project aims to enable undergraduates to more highly value their educational experiences through increased awareness of the relationship between STEM course content (i.e., knowledge, skills, and perspectives) and the issues impacting underserved communities. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.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.