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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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Gene Annotation in High Schools: Successful Student Pipeline and Teacher Professional Development in Bioscience Using GENI-ACT
Knowledge of genomics is an essential component of science for high school student health literacy. However, few high school teachers have received genomics training or any guidance on how to teach the subject to their students. This project explored the impact of a genomics and bioinformatics research pipeline for high school teachers and students using an introduction to genome annotation research as the catalyst. The Western New York-based project had three major components: (1) a summer teacher professional development workshop to introduce genome annotation research, (2) teacher-guided student genome annotation group projects during the school year, (3) with an end of the academic year capstone symposium to showcase student work in a poster session. Both teachers and students performed manual gene annotations using an online annotation toolkit known as Genomics Education National Initiative-Annotation Collaboration Toolkit (GENI-ACT), originally developed for use in a college undergraduate teaching environment. During the school year, students were asked to evaluate the data they had collected, formulate a hypothesis about the correctness of the computer pipeline annotation, and present the data to support their conclusions in poster form at the symposium. Evaluation of the project documented increased content knowledge in basic genomics and bioinformatics as well as increased confidence in using tools and the scientific process using GENI-ACT, thus demonstrating that high school students are capable of using the same tools as scientists to conduct a real-world research task.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1729944
- PAR ID:
- 10293285
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Frontiers in Microbiology
- Volume:
- 11
- ISSN:
- 1664-302X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.578747
