Improved STEM education for 21st century environmental scientists through stratified mentoring and professional networking

通过分层指导和专业网络改善 21 世纪环境科学家的 STEM 教育

• 批准号: 1611860
• 负责人: Lixin Jin
• 金额: $ 29.84万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at El Paso
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-01 至 2020-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1611860&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Improved; STEM; education; 21st; century

Providing students with meaningful hands-on experiences, especially place- and culturally-based experiences and close mentoring, is key to producing a professional workforce capable of effectively studying, interpreting, and communicating the impacts of anthropogenic and natural change on the Earth's systems. This project will establish and implement a stratified mentoring model to enhance recruitment, retention, and training of Hispanic students in the Environmental Sciences in the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), and to better prepare 21st century environmental scientists for academic and technical STEM workforces. This program will produce a significant number of well-trained Hispanic environmental scientists, thus positively contributing to the national pipeline of STEM workers, and helping to narrow the underrepresentation gap. Equally important, this project will disseminate and explore the transferability of this innovative strategy to other institutions. The primary goal of the proposed program will be to develop an interdisciplinary stratified mentoring approach to environmental science studies. The structure of the stratified mentoring team is innovative, where multiple faculty from UTEP, and professionals from federal, state and local agencies, industry, private sectors and academia will collectively and collaboratively mentor senior undergraduates through interdisciplinary, hands-on research projects, and in turn, these seniors will supervise sophomore undergraduate students. This goal will be achieved by curriculum reform, where senior students will be exposed to three consecutive semesters of research experience including summer internships. These changes will allow for closer interactions among environmental science majors, and between students, faculty, and their future employers. Taking advantage of the region's "educational closed-loop", seniors will further improve communication and collaboration skills through service-learning and community outreach, thus aiding in the recruitment of new majors. A formal evaluation will be used to quantify the impact of the proposed activities, and assess the effectiveness of the stratified mentoring approach. This stratified mentoring approach will serve as an instructional model for other institutions.

为学生提供有意义的动手体验，尤其是基于地点和文化的经验以及近距离指导，是生产能够有效研究，解释和传达人为和自然变化对地球系统的影响的专业劳动力的关键。该项目将建立并实施分层的指导模型，以增强德克萨斯大学El Paso（UTEP）环境科学的西班牙裔学生的招聘，保留和培训，并更好地为21世纪的环境科学家准备学术和技术STEM劳动力。 该计划将产生大量训练有素的西班牙裔环境科学家，从而为STEM工人的全国性管道做出积极贡献，并帮助缩小代表性不足的差距。同样重要的是，该项目将传播并探索这种创新战略向其他机构的转移性。拟议计划的主要目标是为环境科学研究开发跨学科的分层指导方法。分层指导团队的结构是创新的，来自UTEP的多个教职员工以及联邦，州和地方机构，行业，私营部门和学术界的专业人士将通过跨学科的，动手的研究项目集体，协作地指导高级本科生，而这些老年人将这些老年人监督小学生的学生。课程改革将实现这一目标，在该改革中，高年级学生将接触到包括暑期实习在内的研究经验的三个学期。这些变化将使环境科学专业以及学生，教职员工及其未来雇主之间进行更紧密的互动。 利用该地区的“教育闭环”，老年人将通过服务学习和社区宣传进一步提高沟通和协作技巧，从而有助于招募新专业。将使用正式评估来量化拟议活动的影响，并评估分层指导方法的有效性。这种分层的指导方法将作为其他机构的教学模型。