Design & Development: Colorado Science and Engineering Inquiry Collaborative

重要的是设计、开发和调查教育计划，以支持21世纪推进技术需求的工程兴趣和技能的发展。这个名为“设计与开发：科罗拉多科学与工程探究协作”（SCENIC）的项目将通过开发引人注目的、动手操作的空气和土壤质量环境工程课程以及相关的扩展基础设施来满足这些需求，以支持科罗拉多州农村中学生的学习和工程身份的发展。通过高中生、科罗拉多大学博尔德分校（CU）的学生和教师、高中教师和当地社区合作伙伴之间的合作伙伴关系，这些基于探究的课程将在科罗拉多州农村K-12学校的科学教室中开发和完善。该课程将把CU的环境监测设备整合到科学和/或工程教室中，让初高中学生在攻读工程学位的大学生的支持下，调查自己社区的环境问题。农村高中学生探究项目的结果将在学年结束时向当地社区成员展示。在整个项目中，科罗拉多大学的一组研究人员将调查这一过程，以了解学生是如何开始认同工程学的，在合作中起作用的是什么，以及下一学年需要改进的地方。该项目有助于研究工程师的形成，包括理解学生如何成为工程师，如何改变系统以更好地培养工程师，以及如何为其他人提供发展类似举措的路线图。拟议的设计和开发项目将调查和完善教育基础设施，以支持科罗拉多12所农村高中的工程和科学学习以及身份形成。基于设计的研究将为支持高中生探究的材料和方法的改进提供信息，并促进我们对支持工程身份形成的潜在过程和机制的基本理解。研究的问题是：外联项目的教育基础设施如何支持农村高中生对工程和科学的参与和认同？开展与当地相关的环境监测如何有助于农村学生的工程和科学身份发展？SCENIC将大学工程教师和学生导师与农村高中结合起来，通过在线、互动课程和亲自访问，支持高中学生开展具有教育意义的当地环境监测项目。大学工程专业的本科生和研究生参加了一个为期两个学期的课程，为他们指导高中生做准备。通过设计研究，不断完善环境监测舱等教育资源和互动支持机制。该项目将推动有关将尖端大学研究工具用于环境监测的知识应用于高中课堂，以影响工程身份的发展。SCENIC大学支持的课程和指导将影响农村学生、学区和当地社区。研究结果将通过在农村高中举行的研讨会、同行评议的出版物、地方和国家会议以及在美国国家科学基金会支持的TeachEngineering数字图书馆发布的课程来传播。出版物和会议将明确针对K-12和高等教育水平的研究受众和实践教师受众。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。

It is important to design, develop and investigate educational programs to support the development of interests and skills in engineering for advancing technology needs in the 21st Century. This project, Design & Development: Colorado SCience and ENgineering Inquiry Collaborative (SCENIC), will meet these needs through the development of engaging, hands-on air and soil quality environmental engineering curriculum and an associated outreach infrastructure to support rural Colorado middle and high school students’ learning and engineering identity development. These inquiry-based curricula will be developed and refined in Colorado science classrooms at rural K-12 schools by a collaborative partnership between high schools students, University of Colorado Boulder (CU) students and faculty as well as high school teachers and local community partners. The curriculum will integrate CU environmental monitoring equipment into science and/or engineering classrooms to allow middle/high schools students to investigate environmental issues in their own community, with the support of college students pursuing engineering degrees. Results of the rural high school students’ inquiry projects will be presented to members of local communities at an event at the end of the school year. Throughout the project, a team of CU researchers will investigate the process to understand how students begin to identify with engineering, what is working about the collaborations and where improvement is needed for the following school year. This project contributes to research in the formation of engineers including an understanding of how students are formed into engineers, how to transform the system to better develop engineers, and how to provide a roadmap for others to develop similar initiatives. The proposed design and development project would investigate and refine an educational infrastructure for supporting engineering and science learning and identity formation in an outreach program in twelve rural Colorado high schools. Design-based research will both inform the refinement of the materials and approach for supporting high school student inquiry, and advance our fundamental understanding of the underlying processes and mechanisms that support engineering identity formation. The research questions are: How do aspects of the outreach program’s educational infrastructure support rural high school students’ participation in and identification with engineering and science? How does conducting locally relevant environmental monitoring contribute to rural students’ engineering and science identity development? SCENIC integrates university engineering faculty and student mentors with rural high schools via on-line, interactive curriculum and in-person visits to support high school students in carrying out educationally impactful local environmental monitoring projects. University undergraduate and graduate engineering students enroll in a two-semester course that prepares them to mentor the high school students. Environmental monitoring pods and other educational resources and interactive support mechanisms will be iteratively improved via design-based research. The project will advance knowledge regarding the adaptation of cutting-edge university research tools for environmental monitoring into high school classrooms to impact engineering identity development. SCENIC’s university-supported curriculum and mentoring will impact rural students, school districts, and local communities. Results will be disseminated through symposiums at the rural high schools where students showcase their work, peer-reviewed publications, local and national conferences, and through curriculum published in the NSF-supported TeachEngineering Digital Library. Publications and conference sessions will explicitly target both research audiences and practicing teacher audiences at both K-12 and higher education levels.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.