The objective of "SEEing Science in Appalachia: Serving, Exploring, and Engaging in an Honors Interdisciplinary Science Course" is to develop a novel, interdisciplinary, laboratory science course to deliver more successful, innovative, and meaningful STEM instruction to highly motivated and academically talented college students from an under-served region of the country. Faculty from the relevant departments at Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) are to create the course. Honors instructors from across the university are introduced to relevant place-based pedagogy. The benefits of this unique pedagogy are also extended to middle school students from the 22-county Appalachian service region around EKU. Students are involved in a "service science" project employing both sample collection in the field and analysis in the laboratory. These projects offer on-going environmental monitoring relevant to issues of particular concern in Kentucky and the Appalachian region by focusing on issues of water quality and watershed management and bee and pollinator health and sustainability.
The intellectual merit of the project is in the creation, piloting, and dissemination of a model for relevant, place-based, general education STEM instruction throughout Kentucky, the region, and the nation and to introduce relevant and innovative scientific research and instruction into the Eastern Kentucky University Honors Program. The project actively engages students in collecting, recording, analyzing and publishing scientific data about projects with a focus on the 22-county largely Appalachian region that EKU serves and in which many of EKU's students reside. The project is directed by expert and experienced PIs. Sustainability and institutionalization are inherent in the selection of studies and the project design. A comprehensive evaluation plan is designed to substantiate the development of the project and to assess the immediate outcomes and the longer-term impacts of the program on various stakeholders.
The broader impacts of the program are several. Faculty and honors students at Eastern Kentucky University are directly impacted by research undertaken and innovative pedagogies used in class. A more comprehensive and accurate understanding of science among future Kentucky teachers and community leaders is a result. Successful role models of high achieving college students (60 per year) and relevant science experience for middle school students (180 per year) from an underrepresented, impoverished area are provided. Ongoing monitoring of data collection at notable sites of environmental study and concern in the Appalachian region occurs. A model for the reform of general education honors science instruction ready for national dissemination is anticipated.
