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1. Experiential and Real-World Learning for Teachers in the Billion Oyster Project and Curriculum and Community Enterprise (BOP-CCERS) for the Restoration of New York Harbor with New York City Public Schools Program

   https://doi.org/10.5430/jct.v8n4p30  

   Birney, Lauren B. ; Kong, Joyce ; Evans, Brian R. ; Ceritelli, Samantha ; Danker, Macey ( October 2019 , Journal of Curriculum and Teaching)

   The Billion Oyster Project and Curriculum and Community Enterprise for the Restoration of New York Harbor withNew York City Public Schools (BOP-CCERS) seeks to integrate harbor restoration activities with science teachers inorder to provide their students with experiential learning through environmental impact in New York City with thevision that public school students in New York City can benefit from environmental science and experiential learningwork through authentic research, data collection, and experimentation. The purpose is to engage science teachers withexperiential learning opportunities in the New York Harbor that helps them create engaging lessons for their ownstudents. It was found that teachers responded most positively to workshops that included hands-on activities,specifically the oyster restoration station trainings, classroom oyster tank setups and activities with scientists. Teachersreported that the BOP-CCERS program prepared them to support student learning of the program content and scientificresearch activities. Students who engage in real-world science are more likely to see the relevance of science and seethemselves working toward a career pathway in STEM. 

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2. Billion Oyster Project: Linking Public School Teaching and Learning to Ecological Restoration of New York Harbor Using Innovative Applications of Environmental and Digital Technologies

   Janis, Samuel ; Birney, Lauren ; Newton, Robert ( January 2016 , International journal of digital content technology and its applications)

   
Research consistently shows that children who have opportunities to actively investigate natural settings and engage in problem-based learning greatly benefit from the experiences. They gain skills, interests, knowledge, aspirations, and motivation to learn more. But how can we provide these rich opportunities in densely populated urban areas where resources and access to natural areas are limited? This project will develop and test a model of curriculum and community enterprise to address that issue within the nation's largest urban school system. Middle school students will study New York harbor and the extensive watershed that empties into it, and they will conduct field research in support of restoring native oyster habitats. The project builds on the existing Billion Oyster Project, and will be implemented by a broad partnership of institutions and community resources, including Pace University, the New York City Department of Education, the Columbia University Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the New York Academy of Sciences, the New York Harbor Foundation, the New York Aquarium, and others.
The project focuses on an important concept in the geological, environmental, and biological sciences that typically receives inadequate attention in schools: watersheds. This project builds on and extends the Billion Oyster Project of the New York Harbor School. The project model includes five interrelated components: A teacher education curriculum, a student learning curriculum, a digital platform for project resources, an aquarium exhibit, and an afterschool STEM mentoring program. It targets middle-school students in low-income neighborhoods with high populations of English language learners and students from groups underrepresented in STEM fields and education pathways. The project will directly involve over forty schools, eighty teachers, and 8,640 students over a period of three years. A quasi-experimental, mixed-methods research plan will be used to assess the individual and collective effectiveness of the five project components. Regression analyses will be used to identify effective program aspects and assess the individual effectiveness of participation in various combinations of the five program components. Social network mapping will be used to further asses the overall "curriculum plus community" model. 

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3. The Billion Oyster Project and Curriculum and Community Enterprise for Restoration Science Curriculum Impact on Teacher Engagement

   https://doi.org/10.5430/jct.v11n4p53  

   Birney, Lauren B. ; Evans, Brian R. ; Kong, Joyce ; Solanki, Vibhakumari ; Mojica, Elmer-Rico ; Scharff, Christelle ( April 2022 , Journal of Curriculum and Teaching)

   The Billion Oyster Project and Curriculum and Community Enterprise for the Restoration of New York Harbor with New York City Public Schools (BOP-CCERS) program is a National Science Foundation (NSF) supported initiative and collaboration of multiple institutions and organizations led by Pace University. The NSF project, Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST), had generated a large amount of data through engagement with teachers and students throughout New York City public schools. This article presents the second part to a large data collection study with focus on Underrepresented Minority (URM) student interest in STEM and engagement with teachers to support them in teaching science through experiential learning and lessons that connect science to the real world, particularly through science in the New York Harbor. The first component of the study focused on URM student interest in STEM. This second component of the study focuses on teacher engagement in the program, and what the researchers had learned in the process. Overall, teachers reported very favorable options on the impact of the BOP-CCERS activities as ways to generate student interest in STEM majors and careers. Teacher participants were generally positive about the amount of support and resources they received as members of the project, as well as the oyster-related knowledge and practices they learned to use with their own students in oyster field research. Data from the study provided evidence that the teacher activities were successful and met the project’s goals to provide support and resources for teachers to engage students in oyster restoration research. 

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4. Microteaching: An Introspective Case Study with Middle School Teachers in New York City Public Schools

   https://doi.org/10.5430/jct.v6n2p1  

   Birney, Lauren B. ; Kong, Joyce ; Evans, Brian R. ; Danker, Macey ; Grieser, Kathleen ( August 2017 , Journal of Curriculum and Teaching)

   The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential impacts of microteaching on experienced teachersparticipating in the Community Enterprise for Restoration Science (CCERS) Teaching Fellowship at Pace Universityas part of a National Science Foundation-funded research project on the education model known as the Curriculum andCommunity Enterprise for Restoration Science (CCERS). The program builds a learning community of teachers in thefellowship program as they participated in monthly workshops in cohorts and continuously interact with each otherduring the two years of the program. Each teacher in Cohort 1 of the CCERS Fellowship was required to provide a brieflesson that they have used in the classrooms from the CCERS curriculum. Generally, the Teaching Fellows’micro-lessons contained appropriate objectives presented to the class aligned well to the objectives of the CCERSinitiative, which focused on harbor restoration learning within a STEM context. By conducting field studies atrestoration stations that students set up near their schools, students across all schools learned about the biology,chemistry, ecology and history of the Hudson River. In addition to teaching science content, all teachers incorporatedlessons on helping students to develop literacy strategies to build vocabulary. The microteaching modules allowed forteachers to gain insight as to how the curriculum was being implemented into other teachers’ classrooms. It permittedfor teachers’ exposure to the various teaching methods and resources being used to assist underrepresented studentsand students where English is a second language. 

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5. The Billion Oyster Project and Curriculum and Community Enterprise for Restoration Science Curriculum: The Digital Platform and Student Symposium Presentations

   https://doi.org/10.5430/jct.v11n8p53  

   Birney, Lauren B. ; Evans, Brian R. ; Kong, Joyce ; Solanki, Vibhakumari ; Mojica, Elmer-Rico ( October 2022 , Journal of Curriculum and Teaching)

   The Billion Oyster Project and Curriculum and Community Enterprise for the Restoration of New York Harbor (BOP-CCERS) program is a National Science Foundation (NSF) supported initiative and collaboration of multiple institutions and organizations led by Pace University and is in collaboration with New York City Public Schools. This large-scale project, Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST), generated a large amount of data through programming that engaged both teachers and students. This article presents the third part to the study with focus on the Digital Platform and results from the student Symposium presentations. Part 1 focused on Underrepresented Minority (URM) student interest in STEM as motivated by the original project. Part 2 focused on URM student engagement with teachers to support students in teaching science through experiential learning and lessons that connect science to the real world, particularly through science in the New York Harbor. Moreover, the second part of the study focused on teacher engagement in the program, and what the researchers had learned in the process. The third aspect of the study, and primary focus on this paper, had found additional positive results cited by the teachers in the study both using the Digital Platform and after the project outcomes from the student Symposium presentations. 

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