HSI Pilot Project: Broadening Research Experiences for HSI STEM Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (BREDEI)

在改善本科STEM教育的支持下：西班牙裔服务机构（HSI计划），这个轨道1项目旨在提高STEM教育管道的质量，可用性和多样性。通过在德克萨斯A M大学-圣安东尼奥圣安东尼奥建立一个可持续的本科实地研究项目，该项目将发展一个强大的科学和专业身份，这对坚持STEM专业和追求科学相关职业的动机至关重要。我们将培养榜样，促进学生参与联邦政府支持的研究项目，并提供实地培训计划，以提高参与学生的科学素养和身份。随着项目团队验证这些实践的影响并将其开发为课程计划，该项目将有一个长期的-通过改善德克萨斯州南部西班牙裔学生在水生生态学专业中不成比例的低代表性，从代表性不足的人口中培养可靠的国内人才的长期影响。水生科学是高度跨学科的，需要大量的实地经验，而这些经验并不总是对代表性不足的学生团体开放。我们假设，提高实地研究机会和榜样的可用性是少数STEM专业成功的关键。因此，该项目的具体目标是（1）提高少数民族社区的科学素养，（2）扩大本科生的研究经验，重点是评估河流生态系统的健康，（3）通过提供实地研究和指导计划，改善少数民族学生的招聘，保留和毕业，以及（4）通过HSI、学校、公共和私营部门实体之间的合作模式，建立一个可持续的实地重课程模式。这些目标将通过实施由国家生态观测网络（氖）、国家西班牙裔环境理事会（NHEC）和得克萨斯州水生科学项目支持的实地培训活动来实现。该项目的成果将使该大学能够制定一个由大学教师审查的实地研究课程，使多个自然资源专业的学生受益。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，鉴于不同的性质和背景下的HSIs，需要创新的方法，激励机构和社区转型，促进基础研究（一）参与学生学习，（二）关于如何有效地多样化和增加STEM的参与，以及（三）提高我们对如何在HSIs建立机构能力的理解。HSI计划所支持的项目也将从这些方法中汲取经验，以产生关于如何实现这些目标的新知识。该奖项反映了NSF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。

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-­Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 project aims to improve the quality, availability, and diversity of the STEM educational pipeline. By building a sustainable undergraduate field research program at Texas A&M University-­San Antonio, the project will develop a strong scientific and professional identity critical to the persistence in STEM majors and the motivation to pursue a science-­related career. We will develop role models, facilitate student participation in federally-­supported research projects, and provide field training programs to heighten the scientific literacy and identity among the participating students. As the project team validates the impact of these practices and develops them into a curricular program, the project will have a long-­term impact of cultivating reliable domestic talent from underrepresented populations by improving the disproportionately low representation of Hispanic students in south Texas in the aquatic ecology profession.Aquatic sciences are highly interdisciplinary and require a considerable amount of field experience that has not always been accessible to under-­represented student groups. We hypothesize that improving the availability of field research opportunities and role models are key to the success of minority STEM majors. Thus, the specific aims of the project are to (1) improve scientific literacy among minority communities, (2) broaden undergraduate research experiences focusing on assessing the health of stream ecosystems, (3) improve recruitment, retention, and graduation of minority students by offering field research and mentoring programs, and (4) establish a sustainable model for a field-­heavy curriculum via a collaborative model between HSIs, schools, public and private sector entities. These objectives will be achieved by implementing field-­training activities supported by the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), the National Hispanic Environmental Council (NHEC), and the Texas Aquatic Science project. The outcome of the project will enable the development of a university faculty-reviewed field-­study curriculum for A&M-­SA that will benefit students from multiple natural resource majors. 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. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also draw from these approaches to generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims.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.