Intellectual Merit: Environmental biology graduate students will learn to use inquiry-based pedagogy to become effective in teacher training, in K-12 schools and in university teaching, and will gain direct experience with translating their research expertise into a K-12 learning environment. Participating graduate fellows will be more likely to connect with the broader community throughout their careers, thus strengthening US STEM education. Through a competitive process, 12 fellows will be selected annually from six U of MN graduate programs: Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior; Entomology; Natural Resources Science and Management; Plant Biology; Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology; and Water Resources Science. Each fellow will be paired with an experienced teacher from one of four Minneapolis and St. Paul schools (three fellow-teacher pairs per school). Teachers will gain increased STEM content and process knowledge, and their students will engage in real science and scientific research. Consequently, the urban students involved in the project will gain confidence in their science skills and thus be more likely to see themselves as potential scientists. Three categories of project activities are planned: summer workshops for fellows and teachers, science activities in K-8 classrooms during the academic year, and activities to supplement and support interactions between fellows and the K-12 school community. Summer provide science content training for the teachers and initial pedagogy training for fellows. Classroom and after-school science activities are designed to support and to extend national, state and district science content standards. Fellow/ student classroom and science club projects will culminate with in-school Science Fairs at each school and a project-wide Natural story Student Research Fair that promote connections between fellows and the broader school community, including parents and families. During the academic year, fellows will enroll in a seminar course led by the PIs, and receive additional training in teaching practices, grant writing and providing resources for K-12 education.
Broader Impacts: The primary goal of this project is to train 36 graduate fellows who will then work with K-12 schools throughout their careers and eventually train the next generation of graduate students to do likewise. These fellows will serve as role models in four urban schools in which students from under-represented groups predominate and share their K-12 experience with colleagues within the university and the broader scientific community. An important outcome of this project will be the development of closer ties between public schools and the STEM programs of the University of Minnesota, and an improved understanding at the university of how to create effective K-12 collaborations. After the grant period, elements of the program will be incorporated into graduate student curriculum offerings and Bell Museum programmatic efforts.
