AGU 2018

Increasing Underrepresented High School Students’ STEM Career Awareness and Interest: An Informal Geospatial Science Program

Garrett C. Millar, Eric S. Money, Kyle S. Bunds, Helena Mitasova

Background & Motivation

Importance of STEM interest and awareness
Students begin losing interest in science as early as elementary school
Can a more meaningful learning experience be given? How?

Geospatial technologies (GSTs)

Interest in and awareness of STEM content and careers are important factors that influence high school students’ motivation to pursue STEM topics later on in college and as a career.
Unfortunately, students begin losing interest in science as early as elementary school, as most science taught in the classroom is unrelated to or disconnected from the real world.
We propose that a more meaningful learning experience can be provided to underrepresented high school students through the use of innovative geospatial technologies (GSTs), as the use and study of GSTs reconnects students to scientific problems that occur naturally in the real world (climate change, geohazards, and urbanization impacts on natural resources), specifically increasing students’ feelings of responsibility and sensitivity towards local and global geographical issues.
Thus, we present an informal 8-week geospatial science program (Geospatial Applications for Problem Solving; GAPS)–which introduces students to cutting-edge technologies in the geospatial sciences to solve real-world geographic problems, while learning about all the exciting benefits of a career in the geospatial sciences and STEM.

Tangible Landscape:

A tangible user interface powered by open source GIS

Tangible Landscape: Design & Concept

With Tangible Landscape you can hold a GIS in your hands - feeling the shape of the earth, sculpting its topography, and directing the flow of water.

Student Demographics

Results & Conclusions

Goal 1: Improving student competence in science

Student project presentations: Average 3.39 (out of 4) on being able to explain background material

Goal 2: Nurturing student enthusiasm for science

56% of participants indicated an increased interest in learning science.

Goal 3: Interesting students in research or other science-related careers

80% of parents stated their child gained skills to use in a STEM career

We were able to see improvement in student achievement by the end of the 8-week program.
While students presented their student projects, the judges were impressed with the student’s ability and mastery of science concepts.
Overall on the judging rubric, the students scored relatively high, with an average 3.39 (out of 4) on being able to explain the background material.
Considering the majority of students (80%) had never heard of GIS or geospatial science when starting the program, we found this data encouraging, but continued use of technologies and concept learning could be enhanced to further improve confidence and competence in science, particular as it relates to geospatial science, which is a brand new field to many of these students.

Several students indicated they are more interested learning science. This is a positive indication that the program, at least marginally, is increasing student interest in science.
Half of the participants indicated that they are thinking about taking more science classes in the future and 56% of participants indicated an increased interest in learning science.
Overall, this is encouraging and indicates that the program is having a positive outcome on student interest in science.
Of course, there is still room for improvement and we are examining ways to adjust activities and technology to show further improvement in this metric (next slide).

50% of participants indicated an increased interest in a science career.
Another positive indicator came from the parental survey, where 80% of parents stated their child gained skills to use in a STEM career.

Future Directions

Increased use of geospatial technologies

Tangible Landscape

Time alloted for project activities
Looking into the future

Many of the activities were well received, however, we did not utilize the Tangible Landscape technology as often as expected and it was initially difficult to determine how best to use it during the Saturday sessions, so it became more of an ad-hoc use.
For the next implementation, we have created several dedicated Tangible Landscape activities that will provide hands-on teaching of several GIS-STEM concepts, such as contouring, elevation, flow, spatial perspective, etc. We will also be introducing some additional technology, including a SimTable environment for additional activities.
Finally, we plan to update the existing activities for better flow and timing.
We are also considering doing short ‘activity polling’ at the end of each day to inquire about what activities they liked and disliked that day.
The project activity will also be updated to set up project teams earlier during the program. During the first cohort, students were overwhelmed and rushed in completing their projects, this time we want to have at least 4 weeks to allow the students to prepare the projects for presentation at the map fair. We may also bring back the winning team from the previous GAPS cohort to talk about their project.
Beyond the timeframe of this project, we are looking at several ways to continue this work. Based on our collaboration with the WELL, we may be able to maintain at least a short, modified summer camp for students, open to students the WELL already works with throughout the summer in various camps. We may also provide ‘geospatial modules’ to other existing camps to introduce students to the concepts and ideas, where it would be appropriate. Finally, we have explored additional funding through NSF to build off of the GAPS program and develop a summer institute that would include both teachers and students. We are also continually reviewing other grant opportunities.

Questions?

Thank you!