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1. Is Community Relevance Enough? Civic and Science Identity Impact of Microbiology CUREs Focused on Community Environmental Justice

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.578520  

   Adkins-Jablonsky, Sarah J. ; Akscyn, Rob ; Bennett, Brad C. ; Roberts, Qutia ; Morris, J. Jeffrey ( December 2020 , Frontiers in Microbiology)

   null (Ed.)

   Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) often involve a component where the outcomes of student research are broadly relevant to outside stakeholders. We wanted to see if building courses around an environmental justice issue relevant to the local community would impact students’ sense of civic engagement and appreciation of the relevance of scientific research to the community. In this quasi-experimental study, we assessed civic engagement and scientific identity gains ( N = 98) using pre- and post-semester surveys and open-ended interview responses in three different CUREs taught simultaneously at three different universities. All three CURES were focused on an environmental heavy metal pollution issue predominantly affecting African–Americans in Birmingham, Alabama. While we found increases in students’ sense of science efficacy and identity, our team was unable to detect meaningful changes in civic engagement levels, all of which were initially quite high. However, interviews suggested that students were motivated to do well in their research because the project was of interest to outside stakeholders. Our observations suggest that rather than directly influencing students’ civic engagement, the “broadly relevant” component of our CUREs engaged their pre-existing high levels of engagement to increase their engagement with the material, possibly influencing gains in science efficacy and science identity. Our observations are consistent with broader community relevance being an important component of CURE success, but do not support our initial hypothesis that CURE participation would influence students’ attitudes toward the civic importance of science. 

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2. Engaging Nontraditional Students by CURE‐ing Microbes on Ocean Plastics

   Barral, AM ( April 2019 , The FASEB journal)

   It is well known that learning occurs best when students are engaged with a topic that interests them or has relevance for important aspects of their lives. In coastal California, the health of the ocean is a serious local concern, and ocean plastics are ubiquitous. We have developed a course‐based undergraduate research experience (CURE) on an existing research project addressing microbes colonizing floating plastic marine debris. The objective of the project is to increase student engagement and persistence in biology. The project (recently awarded an NSF education grant focused on Hispanic students) brings together National University (NU), an undergraduate teaching institution serving non‐traditional students, with Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), a world‐renowned research‐oriented institution at UC San Diego. A modular design allows students from different biology courses (both non‐majors and majors) to participate in field and laboratory research while also interacting with research scientists and graduate students. Module contents range from classroom material including experimental design, hypothesis testing, and data analysis, to laboratory activities such as deployment of test materials, microbiology and molecular biology techniques, as well as bioinformatics. Assessment of the project involves surveys and focus groups to evaluate student engagement, as well as institutional metrics such as retention in the BS Biology program. A pilot involving a non majors general biology course visiting SIO was well‐received by students. Currently (November 2018) an extended intervention is underway with a majors general biology course. During the first week of class students learned about the research project via video material and class lectures. A half day visit to SIO provided them with field trip experience, laboratory activities, presentation about plastic research, and interactions with scientists and graduate students. In successive laboratory activities, students observed colony morphology, performed Gram stainings and colony PCR, practiced Blast searches and developed simple phylogenetic trees. We conclude that the framework can be successfully implemented in spite of time and logistical challenges. We anticipate implementing and disseminating this CURE as a widely applicable model for biology and ocean science education centered on contemporary topics of immediate interest to students. Support or Funding Information This project is funded by the NSF‐HSI grant #1832545 

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3. The SEECRS Scholar Academy at Whatcom Community College: Three Cohorts of S-STEM Scholarships Later

   Babcock, M. J. ; Vannelli, T. A. ; Hanley, D. ; Davishahl, E. ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   The STEM Excellence through Engagement in Collaboration, Research, and Scholarship (SEECRS) project at Whatcom Community College is in year four of a five-year NSF S-STEM funded program aiming to support academically talented students with demonstrated financial need in biology, chemistry, geology, computer science, engineering, and physics. This program offered financial, academic, and professional support to three two-year cohorts of students and is in the final year of the third and final cohort of the currently funded grant cycle. The SEECRS project aimed to utilize a STEM-specific guided pathways approach to strengthen recruitment, retention, and matriculation of STEM students at the community college level. Over the course of the program 39 individuals received scholarship support. The program supported scholarship recipients through participation in the SEECRS Scholars Academy, a multi-pronged approach to student support combining elements of community building, faculty mentorship, targeted advising activities, authentic science practice, and social activities. Key elements of the program are: a required two-credit course that emphasized STEM identity development, course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) in Biology, Chemistry and Engineering courses, funded summer research opportunities, and paring of each scholar with a faculty mentor. This paper presents data from the first four years of the program including participant outcomes and feedback on their experiences. Results from project evaluation activities such as pre and post surveys, focus groups, exit interviews, and faculty surveys are also presented and analyzed to compare how gains reported by program participants regarding such attributes as their STEM identities and sense of belonging compare to responses from a control group of students who did not participate in the program. Preliminary identification of some program best practices will also be presented. 

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4. Reflections on a paradigm shift: An autoethnographic exploration of program implementation

   Hennessey, N. K. ( April 2023 , ASEE Pacific Southwest)

   Research and evidence-based practices that center sense of belonging and engineering identity development drive strong outcomes for undergraduate students in engineering—especially those who are first-generation college students, from low-income families, and identify as other underrepresented groups in engineering (Deil-Amen, 2011; Hurtado, Cabrera, Lin, & Arellano, 2009; Patrick & Prybutok, 2018). The process from ideation to organizational implementation is not well-documented in the literature on student success, leaving a gap in practitioners’ understanding of how to bring strong, research-informed practices to fruition in their institutions. Implementation is arguably as important as the design of a student intervention and knowing how to implement a good idea is an art and a science. This paper explores the various people and processes that take theory to practice for a National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education funded program. In this paper, I invoke an autoethnographic approach to reflect on the experience of designing a student-facing program while managing the organizational systems that empower or restrain transformative organizational change for students. Autoethnography as a methodology can be a helpful mode to understanding practice, as the researcher can move more fluidly between their lived experience and the organizational, sociological, or psychosocial theory that it mirrors (Berry & Hodges, 2015). The proposed paper discusses my team’s approaches to working with stakeholders and gatekeepers in our organization and in our community to execute a program designed to build sense of belonging and engineering identity while supporting academic attainment of underserved student populations using Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005) and Street-Level Bureaucracy (Lipsky, 1980) as theoretical lenses. A small, summer-intensive program required the cooperation and capital of gatekeepers across the campus of our large, research university in the southwestern United States. This program, which serves students from marginalized ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds in engineering disciplines, became the basis for an NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education award. Students spent part of their summer (six weeks during the pilot program, which evolved to ten weeks for the second cohort) taking summer classes that helped them advance into their sophomore year of an engineering degree. They also took a career development class, which featured regular field trips to various regional engineering employers. Outcomes from the pilot program and subsequent year are promising, and include high rates of persistence, strong academic performance, and increased sense of engineering identity, but this paper focuses on the structure of the program, the need for collaborators, and the way that the team implemented an initiative which challenges the assumptions of stakeholders from within and outside of the institution. Major themes discussed are personal reflections of the process of coalition-building, gaining buy-in from critical partners on-campus and in the community, and co-investing in programmatic improvement with early cohorts of participating students. 

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5. Advancing undergraduate research through regional community college partnerships at Portland State University

   Rice, A. ; Loikith, P. ; Murry, A. ( December 2023 , Transactions American Geophysical Union)

   Opportunities for undergraduate research in STEM programs at community colleges can be few where lower-division science curriculum emphasizes classroom and laboratory-based learning and research laboratories are limited in number. This is particularly true in the geosciences where specialized programs are extremely rare. Urban serving academic research institutions have a unique role and opportunity to partner with regional community college programs for undergraduate research early-on in student post-secondary educational experiences. Programs built for community college transfer students to urban serving undergraduate programs can serve to integrate students into major programs and help reduce transfer shock. The benefits of exploring research as an undergraduate scholar are numerous and include: building towards mastery of technical skills; developing problem-solving in a real-world environment; reading and digesting scientific literature; analyzing experimental and simulation data; working independently and as part of a team; developing a mentoring relationship with a research advisor; and building a sense of belonging and confidence in a scientific field. However, many undergraduate research internships are targeted towards junior-level STEM majors already engaged in upper-division coursework and considering graduate school which effectively excludes community college students from participating. The Center for Climate and Aerosol Research (CCAR) Research Experience for Undergraduate program at Portland State University serves to help build the future diverse research community. 10-week intern research experiences are paired with an expert faculty mentor are designed for students majoring in the natural/physical sciences but not necessarily with a background in climate or atmospheric science. Additional programmatic activities include: 1-week orientation and training using short courses, faculty research seminars, and hands-on group workshops; academic professional and career development workshops throughout summer; journal club activities; final presentations at end of summer CCAR symposium; opportunities for travel for student presentations at scientific conferences; and social activities. Open to all qualifying undergraduates, since 2014 the program recruits primarily from regional (Northwest) community colleges, rural schools, and Native American serving institutions; recruiting students who would be unlikely to be otherwise exposed to such opportunities at their home institution. Over the past 9 cohorts of REU interns (2014-2019), approximately one third of CCAR REU scholars are community colleges students. Here we present criteria employed for selection of REU scholars and an analysis of selection biases in a comparison of students from community colleges, 4-year colleges, and PhD granting universities. We further investigate differential outcomes in efficacy of the REU program using evaluation data to assess changes over the program including: knowledge, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, science identity, program satisfaction, and career aspirations. In this presentation, we present these findings along with supportive qualitative analyses and discuss their implications for community college students in undergraduate research programs in geosciences. 

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