This award is to support the renewal of the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site program at the University of Oklahoma Norman Campus. Ten undergraduate students will be supported by NSF to do nine weeks of summer research in the areas of theoretical and experimental astrophysics, atomic and molecular physics, condensed matter physics, and high energy physics. The primary goal is to bridge the gap from student to scientist, through substantive, consequential research mentored daily by a faculty member in an area in which the student is interested. There is also a semi-weekly seminar series covering the language of quantum mechanics, career options, and career development. The final seminars will be given by the REU students themselves, and there will be a series of voluntary courses, field trips, and seminars that expose the students to real research tools.
The award provided funds to run the University of Oklahoma REU program for three years and to pay the stipends and expenses of 25 students over three years with an additional 10 students matched by OU for a total of 35 students. The program benefited from an additional 10 students who were funded through existing grants. Hence NSF support of the fundamental REU infrastructure allowed us to nearly double the number of originally budgeted NSF funded students. The majority of the NSF funded students came from Midwest or Southwestern states and over 50% were from institutions without a strong tradition of research. The essential elements of our program include: (1) Extensive national recruitment efforts; existing contacts to colleges and universities with large African-American, Hispanic, and Native American enrollments. (2) Undergraduate research projects based on in-depth, one-on-one mentoring by research physicists in areas of publishable research. (3) The fostering of a sizeable undergraduate research community, through group trips, informal meetings with faculty, and socializing with other REU programs at OU. (4) A series of seminars aimed at professional development, discussing the career options of different disciplines, physicists in industry, and advice about graduate school. (5) A concluding series of seminars for which students will write their own abstracts and present their results. On a five point scale (5=extremely good, 1=extremely poor) the students (2008-2010) rated their research projects at 4.3 ± 0.7, the amount they learned at 4.3 ± 0.7, and the usefulness of the program in regards to future career decisions at 4.4 ± 0.7. For all the years we have been funded, the students have been unanimous in stating that they would recommend the program to a friend, and second they have all reported that they "enjoyed" or "most definitely enjoyed" the program. Six publications have been involved REU students from this grant, so far, with several more in various stages of preparation. The purpose of our Research Experience for Teachers program is to promote science literacy in Oklahoma middle and high schools. To do this, teachers are invited to the department for a 9 week program overlapping the Research Experience for Undergraduates program. Teachers then interact with the researchers in the department, learn science research techniques, and develop materials that can be used in their classroom and disseminated to other schools. For the last six years, we have worked with teachers in developing ``CSI'' themed teaching modules. Our guiding principles are: 1. experiments and lessons should teach good scientific method and technique, 2. topics are chosen that are interesting to middle and high school students, 3. experiments should use materials financially accessible to the teacher. From 2005-2007, we developed forensics science units on fingerprinting, serology, collisions, and currency authentication. During the last funding period, we received funds for three teachers for two years (2008-2009) to develop modules surrounding environmental science. We developed modules concerning the environmental forensics of soils and water. All these modules have been implemented in the classrooms of the participants. Based on the feedback from their use, the modules have been revised and edited. The current incarnation of all module materials can be found online starting from http://nhn.ou.edu/reuhome. From this website, all teachers can have access to the information. We have also provided an e-mail address for feedback on the material from other users.
