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  1. Ella Smith (Ed.)

    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 that involves multiple stakeholder collaborations and is led by Pace University. Within Pace, the initiative crosses over three different schools and colleges and across multiple departments. Pace University’s NSF project of focus in this article is the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program. The purpose is to increase student motivation and preparation for pursuing STEM careers. This article presents results of programming to increase student scientific identity. Findings revealed that students in the 11th grade had the highest level of scientific identity compared to other high school grades. These findings indicate that 11th grade may be an ideal timeframe for interventions to improve scientific identity. Moreover, project participants had higher levels of engagement in STEM-related activities, were more likely to watch videos made by scientists, and read articles written by scientists than those in the control group.

     
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  2. 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 led by Pace University. One of Pace University’s NSF projects is STEM+C (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics plus Computing) designed to work with teachers and students in New York City public schools. This article presents results of a study conducted on the STEM Summer Institute at Pace University in Summer 2022. The purpose was to engage both teachers and students in harbor restoration and experiential learning in New York City including learning about vital ecology projects related to New York’s harbor such as oyster restoration, which is critical to cleaning pollutants in the New York Harbor. Findings revealed that students indicated improved oyster knowledge and restoration skills, scientific skills, collecting and analyzing data, and knowledge about STEM careers. Participating teachers indicated a positive impact on their knowledge of content and harbor restoration, pedagogical knowledge used to engage students in hands-on scientific learning, and methods of engaging and motivating their own students. Moreover, teachers indicated a positive outcome for exposing their students to STEM career options. 
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  3. 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. 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. One purpose of this project is to engage with middle and high school science teachers to assist them in using project-based learning and real-world data collection in their classrooms with their students through harbor restoration initiatives. It was found that Underrepresented Minority (URM) students reported having higher levels of interest in STEM and science than did the non-URM students. While this is a success, it was found that the URM students had lower expectations for success in STEM courses and interest in STEM careers. It was concluded that URM students may need additional support in order to build their confidence and help them to become aware of opportunities in STEM education and careers. 
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