Increasing Participation and Persistence in STEM by Incorporating Field-Based Experiences in an Urban Environment

通过在城市环境中融入实地经验来提高 STEM 的参与度和持久性

• 批准号: 2225187
• 负责人: Rene Vellanoweth
• 金额: $ 81.55万
• 依托单位: California State L A University Auxiliary Services Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-10-01 至 2027-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2225187&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Increasing; Participation; Persistence; STEM; Incorporating

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Implementation and Evaluation (Track 2) project aims to engage undergraduate students in field-based activities at two urban institutions: California State University Los Angeles and Mt. San Antonio College. These institutions are located in the greater Los Angeles area, and they serve a commuter-student population. Financial and logistical challenges have made it difficult to augment science courses with field-based activities, despite their documented benefits. The field-based activities will take place in lower-division biology, chemistry and earth science courses and are expected to increase participation and retention of minoritized students in these disciplines. Outcomes from this project should reduce barriers to participation in field-based activities by training instructors in safe field-based practices, and lowering costs associated with field activities. The set of proposed activities will increase persistence rates across the four majors (Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Geology and Natural Sciences) at the two institutions due to the introduction of engaging field-course experiences that allow students to work in a group setting and connect to environmental issues in their local communities. This work will also increase fieldwork participation rates in the selected majors, which currently have low numbers of minoritized students at both campuses. This is critical to increasing representation, especially Latinx students, in the environmental workforce. Program success will be tracked through pre- and post-course surveys where new field-based activities are implemented. In addition, student and faculty focus groups will be used to assess outcomes at various levels as well as track any related institutional changes. The student population at both participating campuses includes a high proportion of Latinx and other students similarly underrepresented in their participation in STEM fields of study, which should broaden participation in the introductory courses of these majors. This project seeks to increase participation and persistence rates among minoritized students in field-based disciplines in which they are highly underrepresented, which should result in a more diverse workforce and an increase in minority role models for future students. 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.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.

在改善本科STEM教育：西班牙裔服务机构（HSI计划）的支持下，该实施和评估（轨道2）项目旨在让本科生参与两个城市机构的实地活动：加州州立大学洛杉矶和Mt.圣安东尼奥学院。这些机构位于大洛杉矶地区，他们为通勤学生人口服务。财政和后勤方面的挑战使得很难用实地活动来补充科学课程，尽管这些活动有文件证明是有益的。实地活动将在低年级的生物、化学和地球科学课程中进行，预计将增加少数民族学生在这些学科中的参与和保留。这一项目的成果应能减少参与实地活动的障碍，办法是对教员进行实地安全做法的培训，并降低实地活动的相关费用。 这套拟议的活动将提高两个机构四个专业（生物科学，化学，地质学和自然科学）的持续率，因为引入了引人入胜的实地课程经验，使学生能够在小组环境中工作，并与当地社区的环境问题联系起来。这项工作还将提高选定专业的实地考察参与率，目前这两个校区的少数民族学生人数很少。这对于增加环境劳动力的代表性至关重要，特别是拉丁裔学生。将通过课程前和课程后的调查来跟踪计划的成功情况，在这些调查中，将实施新的基于实地的活动。此外，学生和教师焦点小组将用于评估各级成果，以及跟踪任何相关的制度变化。在两个参与校园的学生人口包括拉丁裔和其他学生的比例很高，同样在他们的研究STEM领域的参与代表性不足，这应该扩大在这些专业的入门课程的参与。这一项目旨在提高少数群体学生在其代表性严重不足的实地学科中的参与率和坚持率，这将导致劳动力更加多样化，并为未来的学生树立更多的少数群体榜样。HSI计划旨在加强本科STEM教育，扩大STEM的参与，并建立HSI的能力。实现这些目标，鉴于HSIs的多样性和背景，需要创新的方法，激励机构和社区转型，促进基础研究（i）参与学生学习，（ii）关于如何有效地使STEM多样化和增加参与，以及（iii）该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得支持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。