Groundwater Contamination in the Northeast: Improving STEM Education By Demonstrating How Science Matters

2014年，在纽约州胡西克福尔斯村的公共饮用水中发现了化学物质全氟辛酸（C8或PFOA）。随着对这一发现的关注增加，其他社区开始测试他们的水的PFOA。截至2016年10月，PFOA已被发现在鹰桥和彼得斯堡，纽约州，梅里马克，新罕布什尔州，并在本宁顿，北本宁顿，和波纳尔，佛蒙特州的地下水不安全的浓度。作为回应，本宁顿学院和联合学院的部分科学课程将根据这一正在发生的污染事件进行重新设计。在这些课程中，本科生将接受化学，地质学和环境研究方面的培训，并具备将培训应用于实时生产独立灾害数据的能力。该项目将制定新的课程和教学单元，旨在将当地环境问题纳入科学课程，并制定评估这样做的教育影响的新方法。 该项目产生的教育数据有望为本宁顿学院和联合学院现有的科学课程提供信息和改进，并提供有关文科校园STEM教育的见解。该项目还将产生关于地下水和区域土壤中全氟辛酸含量变化的关键数据，这些数据将提供急需的污染羽流的独立特征。这个项目将展示科学教育对不同本科生和当地社区的公民价值。这个项目的指导性教育研究问题是：如何对当地公共危机进行环境研究，以增强本科生的STEM课程？具体而言，该项目将探讨如何培训学生在环境化学和水文地质学，并装备他们应用这些学科为基础的技能，以帮助产生当地危机的关键数据将影响学生入学，流利，保留，并在干领域的职业方向。研究人员假设，在有意义的环境研究中的实践经验将证明STEM领域在文科教育中的价值，并提高STEM和非STEM专业的学生成绩。为了评估这一假设，该项目将产生数据的变化，学生的态度和能力，在化学，地质学和环境研究，而这些学生参加环境研究附近的水污染问题。教育评估学者将与项目人员合作，校准经过验证的教育评估工具，以适应本项目。这些评价工具包括：具体学科知识的前后评估，非正式科学评估工具（ATIS）中的反思提示，旨在衡量学生对科学的信念和理解，以及课堂本科生研究经验（CURE）调查。该项目还将发展一种反思性的评估基础设施，旨在监测这些班级学生的整个学习经历，并将初步调查结果纳入该项目的整体教学法。这些教育评估工具和方法将使我们能够通过实际应用和考试以及通过嵌入调查，课堂讨论和反思性写作练习中的自我评估来评估学生对学科概念和技能的掌握。

In 2014, the chemical Perfluorooctanoic Acid (C8 or PFOA) was discovered in the public drinking water in the Village of Hoosick Falls, NY. As concern over this discovery grew, other communities began testing their water for PFOA. As of October 2016, PFOA has been discovered in unsafe concentrations in the groundwater of Eagle Bridge and Petersburgh, NY, Merrimack, NH, and in Bennington, North Bennington, and Pownal, VT. In response, select science courses at Bennington College and Union College will be redesigned in conversation with this unfolding contamination event. In these courses, undergraduate students will be trained in chemistry, geology, and environmental studies and equipped to apply that training in the production of independent data on a disaster in real-time. The project will craft new curriculum and teaching modules aimed at incorporating local environmental problems into science curriculum, as well as new methods for assessing the educational impact of doing so. The educational data produced by this project promises to inform and improve existing science curriculum at Bennington College and Union College as well as offer insights about what works in STEM education on a liberal arts campus more generally. This project will also produce key data on changing levels of PFOA in groundwater and regional soils that will provide a much-needed independent characterization of the contamination plume. This project, then, will showcase the civic value of an education in science for diverse undergraduate students and the local community.The guiding educational research question of this project is: How can environmental research on a local public crisis enhance the STEM curriculum for undergraduate students? Specifically, this project willexamine how training students in environmental chemistry and hydrogeology and equipping them to apply those discipline-based skills to help produce key data on a local crisis will influence student enrollment, fluency, retention, and vocational orientation in STEM fields. The researchers hypothesize that hands-on experience in meaningful environmental research will demonstrate the value of STEM fields in a liberal arts education and enhance student outcomes within STEM for both STEM and non-STEM majors. To evaluate this hypothesis, this project will produce data on changes in student attitudes towards and aptitude in chemistry, geology, and environmental studies while those students participate in environmental research on a nearby water contamination issue. Education assessment scholars will collaborate with project personnel to calibrate proven education assessment tools to this project. These evaluation tools include: pre- and post- assessments of discipline-specific knowledge, reflective prompts in Assessment Tools in Informal Science (ATIS) geared towards measuring students' beliefs about and understandings of science, and the Classroom Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) survey. This project will also develop a reflexive infrastructure of assessment designed to monitor the entire learning experience of students in these classes and incorporate preliminary findings into the overall pedagogy of the project. Together, these education assessment tools and methods will enable us to evaluate students' mastery of disciplinary concepts and skills through practical application and exams as well as through self-assessments embedded in surveys, class discussions, and reflective writing exercises.