Developing STEM Teachers Through Interdisciplinary Research


citizen science are connecting research out of the University classroom to high school students and other citizens there's a lot of research that's shown that as more um people get engaged with environmental kind of data they're more aware of some environmental issues around them these projects really make accessible for everybody when you talk about scientists and you talk about mathematicians even those big words will throw people because it's like I can never do that so in the last year we worked on the summer citizens science project um where we looked at the correlation between the vegetation and the Topography of the Dune and we took that and we made it into a lesson plan um in a way that we'd be able to teach high school students and um take them out on the field and so they could use the equipment and how to get it all set up it was a really great way to apply what you learned back in high school and even in college as far as like not only math side but also the science side of like how you're combining the different subjects and it's a great way to really show students how to apply it and it's not just paper pencil tying that kind of back into how it helps especially my high school students a lot of them don't understand that what we do what we learn in the classroom gets applied outside of the room and these projects are a very good Hands-On way for them to be able to experience that and see that graduates entering the classroom with this citizen science approach to learning science uh really expands and makes science more Equitable you know some students show to the classroom and that is their only exposure to science you know so learning that they can do science so in very informal environments and on their own and outside of the classroom uh definitely does truly make it stem for all