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Rural students, schools, and communities have unique challenges that hinder academic achievement, growth, and opportunities, compared to other locales. While there is a need to study this community more, there is also a pressing need to bring the local community members together to support the future generation of learners in developing pathways that lead them to future career opportunities. This article focuses on how a Research Practice Partnership (RPP) can be developed in rural communities to support STEM pathways for local middle-school youth. RPPs are often described as long-term collaborations between both researchers and practitioners in which the participating partners leverage research to address specific persistent problems of practice. We present findings from a developing design-based RPP focused on bringing community members and organizations together to co-design opportunities for underserved youth in rural mountain communities. 

Economically disadvantaged youth residing in mountain tourist communities represent an important and understudied rural population. These communities typically include a large percentage of children that are English language learners. Our NSF STEM Career Connections project, A Model for Preparing Economically-Disadvantaged Rural Youth for the Future STEM Workplace, investigates strategies that help middle school youth in these communities to envision a broader range of workforce opportunities, especially in STEM and computing careers. This poster highlights the initial findings of an innovative model that involves working with local schools and community partners to support the integration of local career contexts, engineering phenomena, 3D printing technologies, career connections, and mentorship into formal educational experiences to motivate and prepare rural youth for future STEM careers. We focus on select classrooms at two middle schools and describe the implementation of a novel 3D printing curriculum during the 2020-2021 school-year. Two STEM teachers implemented the five-week curriculum with approximately 300 students per quarter. To create a rich inquiry-driven learning environment, the curriculum uses an instructional design approach called storylining. This approach is intended to promote coherence, relevance, and meaning from the students’ perspectives by using students’ questions to drive investigations and lessons. Students worked towards answering the question: “How can we support animals with physical disabilities so they can perform daily activities independently?” Students engaged in the engineering design process by defining, developing, and optimizing solutions to develop and print prosthetic limbs for animals with disabilities using 3D modeling, a unique augmented reality application, and 3D printing. In order to embed connections to STEM careers and career pathways, some students received mentorship and guidance from local STEM professionals who work in related fields. This poster will describe the curriculum and its implementation across two quarters at two middle schools in the US rural mountain west, as well as the impact on students’ interest in STEM and computing careers. During the first quarter students engaged in the 3D printing curriculum, but did not have access to the STEM career and career pathway connections mentorship piece. During the second quarter, the project established a partnership with a local STEM business -- a medical research institute that utilizes 3D printing and scanning for creating human surgical devices and procedures -- to provide mentorship to the students. Volunteers from this institute served as ongoing mentors for the students in each classroom during the second quarter. The STEM mentors guided students through the process of designing, testing, and optimizing their 3D models and 3D printed prosthetics, providing insights into how students’ learning directly applies to the medical industry. Different forms of student data such as cognitive interviews and pre/post STEM interest and spatial thinking surveys were collected and analyzed to understand the benefits of the career connections mentorship component. Preliminary findings suggest the relationship between local STEM businesses and students is important to motivate youth from rural areas to see themselves being successful in STEM careers and helping them to realize the benefits of engaging with emerging engineering technologies. 

With the proliferation of 3D printing technologies in schools and makerspaces, there is a need for teaching 3D modeling to students. Learning 3D modeling enhances spatial thinking skills, an essential skill for success in STEM. Creating 3D models requires students to have a deep understanding of 3D space, including rotating and scaling. In this study, we propose a framework developed through video-coding from analyzing screen recordings of middle-school students’ usage of a 3D modeling tool - Tinkercad. The proposed framework focuses on identifying challenges students encounter during 3D modeling. These challenges include spatial thinking skills, working with the Tinkercad interface, and mental model formation. We authenticated the framework by collecting and analyzing data from a 3D printing unit in three middle schools. Our results and subsequent analysis can guide educators and researchers on how to use this framework to support students in having productive learning experiences with Computer-Aided Design tools.