HSI Pilot Project: Broadening Research Experiences for HSI STEM Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (BREDEI)

在“改善本科STEM教育：西班牙裔服务机构（HSI计划）”的支持下，本项目旨在提高STEM教育渠道的质量、可用性和多样性。通过在德州农工大学圣安东尼奥分校建立一个可持续的本科实地研究项目，该项目将培养一种强烈的科学和专业认同感，这对坚持STEM专业和追求科学相关职业的动力至关重要。我们将树立榜样，促进学生参与联邦政府支持的研究项目，并提供实地培训项目，以提高参与学生的科学素养和身份。随着项目团队验证这些实践的影响并将其发展为课程计划，该项目将产生长期影响，通过改善德克萨斯州南部西班牙裔学生在水生生态专业中不成比例的低代表性，从代表性不足的人口中培养可靠的国内人才。水生科学是高度跨学科的，需要大量的实地经验，而这些经验对于代表性不足的学生群体来说并不总是可以获得的。我们假设，提高实地研究机会和榜样的可用性是少数STEM专业学生成功的关键。因此，该项目的具体目标是：(1)提高少数民族社区的科学素养；(2)拓宽本科生研究经验，重点评估河流生态系统的健康状况；(3)通过提供实地研究和指导计划，改善少数民族学生的招聘、保留和毕业；(4)通过hsi、学校、公共和私营部门实体之间的合作模式，建立一个以实地为重点的课程的可持续模式。这些目标将通过实施由国家生态观测站网络（NEON）、国家西班牙裔环境委员会（NHEC）和德克萨斯州水生科学项目支持的实地培训活动来实现。该项目的成果将使A&amp；M- SA的大学教师评审领域学习课程的开发成为可能，这将使来自多个自然资源专业的学生受益。HSI计划旨在加强本科STEM教育，扩大STEM参与，并在HSI进行能力建设。考虑到hsi的多样性和背景，实现这些目标需要创新的方法来激励机构和社区转型，并促进基础研究(1)关于参与式学生学习，(2)关于如何有效地使STEM多样化和增加参与，以及(3)提高我们对如何在hsi建立机构能力的理解。HSI计划支持的项目也将借鉴这些方法，为如何实现这些目标提供新的知识。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-­Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 project aims to improve the quality, availability, and diversity of the STEM educational pipeline. By building a sustainable undergraduate field research program at Texas A&M University-­San Antonio, the project will develop a strong scientific and professional identity critical to the persistence in STEM majors and the motivation to pursue a science-­related career. We will develop role models, facilitate student participation in federally-­supported research projects, and provide field training programs to heighten the scientific literacy and identity among the participating students. As the project team validates the impact of these practices and develops them into a curricular program, the project will have a long-­term impact of cultivating reliable domestic talent from underrepresented populations by improving the disproportionately low representation of Hispanic students in south Texas in the aquatic ecology profession.Aquatic sciences are highly interdisciplinary and require a considerable amount of field experience that has not always been accessible to under-­represented student groups. We hypothesize that improving the availability of field research opportunities and role models are key to the success of minority STEM majors. Thus, the specific aims of the project are to (1) improve scientific literacy among minority communities, (2) broaden undergraduate research experiences focusing on assessing the health of stream ecosystems, (3) improve recruitment, retention, and graduation of minority students by offering field research and mentoring programs, and (4) establish a sustainable model for a field-­heavy curriculum via a collaborative model between HSIs, schools, public and private sector entities. These objectives will be achieved by implementing field-­training activities supported by the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), the National Hispanic Environmental Council (NHEC), and the Texas Aquatic Science project. The outcome of the project will enable the development of a university faculty-reviewed field-­study curriculum for A&M-­SA that will benefit students from multiple natural resource majors. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity at HSIs. Achieving these aims, given the diverse nature and context of the HSIs, requires innovative approaches that incentivize institutional and community transformation and promote fundamental research (i) on engaged student learning, (ii) about what it takes to diversify and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves our understanding of how to build institutional capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also draw from these approaches to generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims.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.