Place-Based Environmental Civic Science: Urban Students Using STEM for Public Good

In the United States, Black and Latinx students are underrepresented in STEM courses and careers due to a dearth of culturally relevant opportunities, which in turn are connected to broader issues of social justice. Place-based environmental civic science offers potential for addressing these issues by enabling students to apply their STEM learning to mitigate local environmental problems. By civic science we refer to science in which all citizens, not just experts, engage for the public good. In this paper, we report on a study in which we followed middle-and high-school science and math classes in urban schools serving racial/ethnic minoritized students as they engaged in an innovative contextualized curriculum—a place-based civic science model in which students work with STEM community partners to address an environmental issue in their community. We draw from students’ open-ended reflections on what they learned from participating in place-based environmental civic science projects that could help their communities. Thematic analyses of reflections collected from 291 students point to beliefs in the usefulness of science to effect community change. Students articulated the science they learned or used in the project and how it could affect their community; they made references to real world applications of science in their project work and made links between STEM and civic contributions. In their own words, the majority of students noted ways that STEM was relevant to their communities now or in the future; in addition, a subset of students expressed changes in their thinking about how they personally could apply science to positively impact their communities and the ties between STEM and social justice. Analyses also point to a sense of confidence and purpose students gained from using STEM learning for their goals of community contribution. Results of this study suggest that focusing on local place as a foundation for students’ STEM learning and linking that learning to the civic contributions they can make, cultivates students’ perceptions of how they can use science to benefit their communities. Findings also suggest that engaging students in place-based civic science work provides effective foundations for nurturing STEM interest and addressing the underrepresentation of youth of color in STEM.

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Experience with a physiology workshop for high school and college teachers.

AJP Advances in Physiology Education ◽

10.1152/advances.1990.258.6.s11 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 258 (6) ◽

pp. S11

Author(s):

D C Randall ◽

J Engelberg ◽

B A Jackson ◽

K A Ogilvy ◽

W R Revelette ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Science Teachers ◽

Science Curriculum ◽

Gifted Students ◽

The United States ◽

School Science ◽

High School Science ◽

College Teachers ◽

Laboratory Equipment ◽

Integrative Physiology

Science education in the United States at all academic levels is widely perceived to need direct assistance from professional scientists. The current dearth of quality applicants from this country to medical and graduate schools suggests that our existing undergraduate and high school science curriculum is failing to provide the necessary stimulus for gifted students to seek careers in the health sciences. Recognizing the need to become more directly helpful to high school and college science teachers, members of the faculty of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine held a 5.5-day Physiology Summer Workshop during June, 1989. Participants included 25 college teachers from Kentucky and 5 other states plus 22 Kentucky high school teachers. The presence of the two levels of educators provided communication about curricular concerns that would be best addressed by mutual action and/or interaction. Each day's activities included morning lectures on selected aspects of organ system and cellular physiology, a series on integrative physiology, and afternoon laboratory sessions. The laboratory setting allowed the instructor to expand on principles covered in lecture as well as provided the opportunity for in-depth discussion. A selection of evening sessions was presented on 1) grants available for research projects, 2) obtaining funds for laboratory equipment, and 3) graduate education in physiology.

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Gifted Students’ Conceptions of Their High School STEM Education

journal for the education of the gifted ◽

10.1177/0162353217745156 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 41 (1) ◽

pp. 60-92 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Dianna R. Mullet ◽

Todd Kettler ◽

AnneMarie Sabatini

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Secondary Students ◽

Stem Education ◽

Curriculum Design ◽

Research University ◽

Gifted Students ◽

Deep Understanding ◽

School Science ◽

High School Science ◽

Stem Learning

This qualitative study was conducted to explore gifted students’ conceptions of their high school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Participants were seven male and female college freshmen selected from the Honors College of a large research university. In-depth interviews captured students’ retrospective accounts of their conceptualizations of their high school STEM education. Interview transcripts were analyzed inductively using a phenomenographic analysis framework. Findings comprised an outcome space composed of six core categories of meaning representing STEM learning environment, institutional supports, social supports, teacher qualities, active involvement in learning, and students’ self-perceptions of their STEM capability. Findings from this study offer a deep understanding of contemporary STEM education of gifted secondary students and help inform future curriculum design, program evaluation, and educational policy.

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Science World, High School Girls, and the Prospect of Scientific Careers, 1957–1963

History of Education Quarterly ◽

10.1111/j.1748-5959.2006.tb00170.x ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 46 (1) ◽

pp. 73-99 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Sevan G. Terzian

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Gender Gap ◽

The United States ◽

School Science ◽

United States Government ◽

High School Science ◽

Betty Friedan ◽

High School Girls ◽

School Girls ◽

Female Scientists

A host of scholars have illuminated the ways in which schools and other institutions have created and then sustained a vast gender gap in the scientific professions. Many of these studies have focused on overt discrimination: deliberate efforts by men to prevent the entry of women into scientific pursuits. Others have identified subtle and culturally mediated processes that have often led girls away from scientific courses and careers. This article examines rhetorically lofty, but qualified, efforts to encourage women's interest in science, and it demonstrates how even these attempts may have contributed to the gender gap in the scientific professions. Specifically, it focuses on the portrayal of women scientists in a high school science magazine,Science World, and analyzes its ambiguous messages to high school girls about the possibility of careers in science. This essay employs ideas about curricular self-selection and the formulation of career aspirations in interpreting the depiction of female scientists in issues from the time of the magazine's founding in 1957 to 1963, the year Betty Friedan publishedThe Feminine Mystiqueand the symbolic dawn of the liberal feminist movement. During these years, the United States government funded numerous educational initiatives in response to the Soviet Union's launching of Sputnik to attract more students to the scientific professions. In addition, professional scientists revised high school curricula in physics and biology to foster public rationality, critical thinking, and greater appreciation of scientific inquiry. The late postwar era also marked the beginning of greater female participation in the sciences.

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Profile of High School Science Learning and the Potential for Implementation of Design Based Learning in Learning During the Covid Period

Jurnal IPA & Pembelajaran IPA ◽

10.24815/jipi.v5i3.21949 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (3) ◽

pp. 219-225

Author(s):

Arie Novia Santi* ◽

Anna Permanasari ◽

Didit Ardianto

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Science Teachers ◽

Qualitative Method ◽

Science Learning ◽

Research Result ◽

Boarding School ◽

School Science ◽

High School Science ◽

Stem Learning ◽

Design Learning

Science teachers must be able to design learning to be able to accommodate demands 21st century learning. Therefore, a study was conducted that aims to analyze the profile of learning with DBL in high school science learning. The research method used is descriptive qualitative method based on learning outcomes through information learning interviews conducted with teachers at the MA Boarding School As Sa'idah Sukabumi as many as 15 people. The results of the interviews showed that generally science teachers had apply the learning process with PBL, PjBL, and discovery learning models by using Process Approach, inquiry and concept. However, students have not demonstrate quality interactions to build critical thinking in accordance with which is expected. Furthermore, no teacher has implemented it yet STEM-based science learning. The results of interviews with teachers show 99% of teachers already familiar with STEM learning, but 65% have not applied it in learning. Meanwhile, the results of interviews with teachers found that DBL which is a marker of STEM learning has never been implemented in science class. Research result provide the need for science learning innovations using the approach DBL, given the highly prospective characteristics of DBL for establishing quality interactions, thinking, creative students and practice the ability to collaborate and communicate students, even in this Covid-19 pandemic situation

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Making it RAIN: Using Remotely Accessible Instruments in Nanotechnology to Enhance High School Science Courses

Frontiers in Education Technology ◽

10.22158/fet.v2n2p74 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 74

Author(s):

Ashley Min ◽

Jared Ashcroft ◽

Joel Monroy ◽

Vanessa Wolf ◽

Christina Lee ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

School Science ◽

High School Science ◽

Stem Learning ◽

Science Courses ◽

Atomic Force ◽

Advanced Technologies ◽

Transmission Electron ◽

Electron Microscopes ◽

K 12

The Remotely Accessible Instruments in Nanotechnology (RAIN) Network is a conglomerate of nineteen community colleges, four-year universities and high school sites that aims to enhance STEM learning by bringing advanced technologies to K-12 education. RAIN provides free remote access to instruments such as Scanning Electron, Atomic Force and Transmission Electron Microscopes, as well as Energy Dispersive and Infrared Spectroscopy. The following is a variety of experiments and an empirical formula lab that can be performed in a high school physical science or chemistry classroom that utilizes the RAIN Network.

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