Catalyst Award: Enhancing STEM education and recruitment through hands-on learning

催化剂项目为历史上的黑人学院和大学提供支持，努力建立教师的研究能力，以加强科学，技术，工程和数学本科教育和研究。预计该奖项将进一步提高教师的研究能力，改善该机构的研究和教学。并让本科生参与研究体验。北卡罗来纳州中央大学的这个项目旨在增加本科环境地理科学课程的入学人数。动手学习预计将增加留存率和入学率的计划。 该项目的目标是通过实施实践学习来加强NCCU的STEM教育和招聘，从而有助于增加B.S.的入学率。环境地理科学计划（EEGS）在NCCU。在本项目中，将开展以下活动：1）为现有的两门课程（GEOG 2100自然地理和ENSC 2100全球环境可持续性）开发和实施实践实验室; 2）开发两门新的环境科学课程：ENSC 2600环境科学和ENSC 2700环境教育和推广，并提供大量的实践实验室; 3）将动手实验室扩大到高中学生，以招募STEM专业的学生。将购置手持仪器和设备，以建立高质量的教学设施，使教师能够实施动手学习，并将动手学习扩展到高中学生。预计在现有的两门STEM课程中，学生的表现和对概念的掌握将有显着提高。NCCU的EEGS计划的留存率和入学率也将有所增加。在这个项目中开发的方法可以扩展到许多其他STEM课程，以加强少数民族机构的STEM教育。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Catalyst Projects provide support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities to work towards establishing research capacity of faculty to strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics undergraduate education and research. It is expected that the award will further the faculty member's research capability, improve research and teaching at the institution. and involve undergraduate students in research experiences. This project at North Carolina Central University is designed to increase the enrollment in the undergraduate Environmental Geographic Science Program. Hands-on learning is expected to increase the retention rate and enrollment in the program. The goal of this project is to enhance STEM education and recruitment at NCCU by implementing hands-on learning, thereby contributing to increase the enrollment in the B.S. Environmental Geographic Science program (EEGS) at NCCU. In this project, the following activities will be conducted: 1) Develop and implement hands-on labs for two existing courses including GEOG2100 Physical Geography and ENSC2100 Global Environmental Sustainability; 2) Develop two new environmental science courses: ENSC2600 Environmental Science and ENSC 2700 Environmental Education and Outreach with significant number of hands-on labs; 3) Extend hand-on labs to students from high schools for the recruitment of STEM majors. Handheld instruments and devices will be acquired to establish a quality teaching facility and allow faculty to implement hands-on learning and to extend hands-on learning to students from high schools. It is expected that there will be a significant improvement in student performance and mastery of concepts in two existing STEM courses. There also will be an increase in the retention rate and enrollment of EEGS program at NCCU. The methods developed in this project could be extended to many other STEM courses to enhance STEM education at Minority institutions.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.