Creating College-High School Partnerships to Assess the Prevalence of Antibiotic Resistant Microbes Across the Environment

国家需要通过结合基于当前研究方法的基于探究或基于发现的研究来吸引和留住科学领域的学生。这项工作将通过启动一个大规模的研究项目，以一种变革性的方式提高本科教育的质量，在这个项目中，每个学生的数据点都是一个低成本的、短期的基于课程的研究模块。这个项目的总体目标是为学生提供一个真实的研究项目，可以很容易地传播到其他学校。学生将收集数据以确定环境中抗生素耐药细菌的流行情况。目标人群是大学转学的高中生和在读的本科生。理工科本科学生将作为他们中学伙伴的同伴导师。该项目为在不同类型的机构（公立、私立、两年制和四年制高等教育机构以及中学）建立研究人员网络提供了机会。本项目对实施教员的时间、预算、设备和专业知识要求较低。其目的是在不影响课程要求和时间限制的情况下，提供轻松访问真实的基于探究的活动。此外，该项目将为教师提供一个低风险的途径，使他们在课堂上从使用传统教学实践转向基于探究的学习。该项目的具体目标是：(1)为各类院校的教师提供教学材料和研究计划，为广大学生提供服务；(2)为至少900名中学生和900名本科生提供基于课程的研究经验；(3)建立伙伴关系，增加中学生和教师接触本科水平的科学家和学生的机会；(4)通过数百名高中生和大学生的众包努力，建立一个抗生素耐药性数据库。所有本科生参与者将被要求参加课堂本科生研究经验（CURE）调查，该调查使用自我评估来衡量一系列课程成果，如学习收获和科学态度问题。这个项目的活动与通用核心数学标准保持一致，例如创建方程、建模和定量推理。在实施前和实施后，将对讲师参与者进行调查，以评估他们对各种教学方法的使用和态度。

There is a national need to attract and retain students in the sciences through the incorporation of inquiry-based or discovery-based research that is based on current research methods. This work will improve the quality of undergraduate education in a transformative way by initiating a large-scale research project in which individual students data points in a low-cost, short duration course-based research module. The overall goal of this project is to provide student access to an authentic research project that can be easily disseminated to other schools. Students will collect data to determine the prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria in the environment. The targeted populations are both college transitioning high school students and current undergraduate students. Undergraduate science students will serve as peer mentors to their secondary school partners. This project provides an opportunity to create a network of researchers at a variety of institution types (public, private, 2-year and 4-year post-secondary institutions, and secondary schools). This project is designed to have low demands on the implementing instructors in terms of time, budget, equipment and instructor expertise. The intention is to provide easy access to an authentic inquiry-based activity without compromising curriculum requirements and time constraints. Additionally, this project will provide a low-stakes gateway to transition instructors from using traditional teaching practices to inquiry-based learning in their classrooms. The specific aims of the project are: (1) to develop teaching and learning materials and a research plan accessible to instructors from a variety of institution types serving a broad demographic range of students, (2) to provide a course-based research experience to at least 900 secondary and 900 undergraduate students, (3) to create partnerships that increase access of secondary school students and teachers to undergraduate-level scientists and students and (4) to generate a database of antibiotic resistance through the crowd-sourcing effort of hundreds of high school and college students. All undergraduate participants will be asked to take the Classroom Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) survey that uses self-assessment to measure a range of course outcomes such as learning gains and science attitude questions. The activities of this project are in alignment with the Common Core standards in mathematics such as creating equations, modeling, and quantitative reasoning. A pre- and post-implementation survey will be administered to the instructor participants to assess their use of and attitudes toward various pedagogical teaching methods.