NIH SciEd 2024: Annual Conference for NIH Science Education Projects

The Teen Wellness Connection (TWC) annually supports 25 public high school students as they work together to plan and lead the Teen Wellness Summit on Mental Health. Working with local university researchers and health professionals as well as other community-based health organizations, TWC students learn about teen mental health in a 3 week-long summer intensive on the UCSF campus, then use their new knowledge and expertise during the next 5 months to inform the design of a daylong Summit for their peers.

Contacts: Nielsen, Katherine M – MA, MS

In this project, the Institute for Future Intelligence (IFI) and the University of Florida (UF) will collaborate with diverse high schools in several states to develop innovative educational technologies and curriculum materials to help teachers and students teach and learn data science as a method for accelerating scientific inquiry and engineering design in the field of drug discovery.

Contacts: Xie, Charles – PhD

Program evaluation is critical to project success as it offers feedback for making iterative changes to improve impact and sustainability. This poster handout displays methods for Culturally Responsive Evaluation (CRE) and data visualization and metrics from the NIH SEPA, Memphis STEM-M Ecosystem Scientists Communicate Research to Students (MemSCoReS) Program, demonstrating the importance of a mixed-methods and culturally responsive evaluation approach.

Contacts: Ayers, Katherine

Our new NIH NINR-supported SEPA program engages teachers and students from Maine and New Hampshire in collecting drinking water samples for analysis of toxic metals. We provide science communication training and tools for students, empowering them to inform their communities of findings from their studies. The project also focuses on intergenerational learning to increase student self-efficacy in science and effect mitigation measures at the household and community levels. This project builds on our previous work, which focused on data literacy and engaging students as citizen scientists in addressing the issue of arsenic contamination of well water in rural communities. Our new school-based citizen science project incorporates feedback from teachers, expressing the importance of including students with homes dependent on community and municipal public water systems, their concern about other drinking water contaminants like uranium, lead, and PFAS “forever” chemicals, and the need to improve student outreach skills. This has led to increased interest in project participation across both states. Anticipated outcomes of our new SEPA program are increased environmental health literacy and student interest in STEM, reduction in exposure to toxins in drinking water, and improved public health.

Project SCORE an informal after-school program that seeks to increase awareness of and interest in public health, science engagement and STEM careers, as well as increase matriculation into higher education STEM programs to enhance and diversify the future biomedical workforce. SCORE develops a student-centered research agenda and uses near-peer mentors to guide students in conducting research projects. The near peer mentor experience is explored in this poster.

Contacts: Barnard, Marie – PhD

The Integrated Environmental Science and Human Risk Laboratory at the University of Arizona is working alongside communities that neighbor resource extraction activities to create an educational model that addresses community-identified environmental justice and public health issues. Through the collaborative engagement of scientists and local community members, this project includes informal science learning activities, community and youth advisory boards, co-created community science, and youth/adult trainings.

The UPR SEPA: Asthma Awareness Program offers a two-year professional development program for STEM secondary teachers from public and private schools in the north-east region of Puerto Rico. Thus far, two cohorts of teachers (n = 30) have benefited from SEPA’s professional development (PD) program. Invited schools can select two to three teachers to participate in the program. PD activities target the development of knowledge and competencies in asthma identification and management, STEM education, and research skills. We measured the program’s impact on teachers’ knowledge and practice through self-administered questionnaires that gather quantitative and qualitative information. Preliminary results suggest that SEPA’s PD program is statistically effective in increasing teachers' knowledge of health and asthma issues and robotics (p<0.05). Likewise, 91% of participants indicated acquiring new scientific knowledge. We have evidence of teachers’ classroom transfer as they develop asthma awareness activities with their students. However, consistent teacher attendance and the development and implementation of classroom projects has been challenging. As we prepare to recruit a new group of teachers, we are committed to enhancing their participation and dedication to the program. We will carefully consider teachers' feedback and suggestions, striving to create a more engaging and supportive environment for all participants.

Contacts: Quesada, Orestes – PhD Borrero, Michelle

We designed and developed the Environmental Health Investigator (EHI) program to promote STEM and health appreciation and career awareness among a diverse group of middle school students. EHI shows how environmental monitoring sensors offer an opportunity for students to engage in environmental health monitoring activities and has the potential to broaden participation in STEM and health fields.

Contacts: Locke, Sharon M – PhD

Seeds to STEM is an innovative, research-based, bilingual program in both Philadelphia and Los Angeles that works with educators, families and children ages 3-5 to promote STEM skills, literacy and nutrition and to help prepare children for kindergarten.

Contacts: Genovesi, Jacqueline DelDuca, Kaitlyn R

Teaching the Genome Generation (TtGG) provides pre-service and current high school teachers with the content knowledge, teaching strategies, and resources needed to enhance student learning in genetics and genomics, with an emphasis on math skills and data literacy. Our approach weaves together three learning strands—molecular genetics, bioinformatics, and bioethics—within the context of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

Contacts: Wojiski, Sarah – PhD Wray, Charles – PhD

The UW-Milwaukee SEPA program offers diverse middle and high school students opportunities to conduct a full range of scientific activities from research to scientific communication in relation to environmental chemical safety. We deliver the program in collaboration with in-service and early career teachers graduating from our pre-service teacher program, and experienced mentor teachers. The novel theme running through our program is data, through the lens of introductory data science and a fully developed “big” data portal.

Contacts: Petering, David H – PhD Berg, Craig A. – PhD

The ALL for Science project expands an instructional framework developed by the K-3 Stem Foundations: Life Science project. With the ALL for Science framework, students engage in two related forms of inquiry: 1) firsthand scientific inquiry based on a model organism or system following a learning cycle approach and 2) related text-based inquiry using existing real-world informational resources (reviewed for appropriateness prior to use).

Contacts: Moreno, Nancy P. – PhD Newell, Alana D – PhD

NeuroLab is a multi-lesson, storyline-based instructional unit that is organized around a heritable movement disorder (congenital mirror movement disorder) with behavioral, neuroanatomical, developmental, cellular, and molecular developmental components. During this integrative classroom experience, students build – in stepwise fashion – an explanatory model of the movement disorder as they pursue their questions in a collaborative learning environment. To develop their models, students analyze, interpret, discuss, and connect real data obtained from human subjects and model organisms over the last several decades.The discoveries made by students through the analysis and interpretation of scientific data are gradually assimilated into working models that form a major focus of classroom discourse. Models undergo periodic revision and gradually increase in explanatory and predictive power as students progress through the NeuroLab sense-making trajectory (select examples of student work will be available for review during roundtable discussion).

Contacts: Imondi, Ralph – PhD

The League of VetaHumanz is an alliance of veterinary superheroes in academia, practice, research, government, and industry who are committed to engaging with under-resourced communities across the globe to provide access and support for youth who aspire to careers in the veterinary profession.

Contacts: San Miguel, Sandra F – DVM, PhD

The STEM Through Authentic Research and Training (START) Program is an integrated partnership bringing together academic, social, and real-world professional experiences to establish a STEM pipeline for first generation and traditionally underrepresented students into college by providing year-round authentic research opportunities and professional development for students and teachers. The disruption of in-person education, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, forced our programming to virtual content, which resulted in the program expanding and reaching more students in the community than imagined. As the possibility of in-person activities resumed, the program adopted a hybrid approach to provide content with our local school partners and beyond. This past year, nearly 800 students (START Ambassadors) were engaged with near-peer virtual and in-person demonstrations from University of Kentucky students on neuroanatomy, brain injury, Parkinson’s disease, COVID-19 and immunology, nutrition, and other STEM topics. In addition, the START Program partnered with Higher Orbits to provide at home learning kits and an in-person ‘Go for Launch’ event, for students to learn and develop teamwork and science communication. START Apprentices continued with mentored, in-person authentic learning experiences in neuroscience, while START Teachers participated in STEM professional development. Near-peer mentors completed a College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA)-certified online mentor training program to provide START Apprentices insight into the college experience, academic strategies, soft skills, and available pathways, while modeling academic resilience and success. Collectively, our findings support that a sense of belonging in neuroscience and STEM is increased for high school students from underrepresented backgrounds through engagement, providing opportunity and minimizing barriers to authentic learning experiences, and trained near-peer mentoring to build a coaching-based partnership.

Contacts: Bradley, Luke H – PhD

This poster describes the implementation of a pilot curriculum introducing basic, clinical and translational research and hands on training for rising 11th- and 12th-graders in Baltimore City.​

Contacts: Parker, Elizabeth – PhD, RD

Our new NIH NINR-supported SEPA program engages teachers and students from Maine and New Hampshire in collecting drinking water samples for analysis of toxic metals. We provide science communication training and tools for students, empowering them to inform their communities of findings from their studies. The project also focuses on intergenerational learning to increase student self-efficacy in science and effect mitigation measures at the household and community level. This project builds on our previous work, which focused on data literacy and engaging students as citizen scientists in addressing the issue of arsenic contamination of well water in rural communities. Our new school-based citizen science project incorporates feedback from teachers, expressing the importance of including students with homes dependent on community and municipal public water systems, their concern about other drinking water contaminants like uranium, lead, and PFAS “forever” chemicals, and the need to improve student outreach skills. This has led to increased interest in project participation across both states. Anticipated outcomes of our new SEPA program are increased environmental health literacy and student interest in STEM, reduction in exposure to toxins in drinking water, and improved public health.

The UW-Milwaukee SEPA program offers diverse middle and high school students opportunities to conduct a full range of scientific activities from research to scientific communication in relation to environmental chemical safety. We deliver the program in collaboration with in-service and early career teachers graduating from our pre-service teacher program, and experienced mentor teachers. The novel theme running through our program is data, through the lens of introductory data science and a fully developed “big” data portal.

Contacts: Petering, David H – PhD Berg, Craig A. – PhD

CRUNCH Lunch uses engaging teacher professional development and robust online resources including lessons, books, and other activities to connect STEM and school lunch, integrating lunch with students’ learning experiences. CRUNCH Lunch can be expanded to all schools that serve school meals.

Contacts: Koch, Pamela A