NSF Awards: 1850302
This year students utilized the water filtration process to understand the importance of everyone having access to clean water and sanitation. Students explored the challenges that many communities face and developed solutions to address issues concerning water scarcity.
Ekundayo Shittu
Outdoor, practical, realistic, feasible.... all combine into profoundly impactful experiences. This is a great project, especially for the fledgling underrepresented scholar to excite them in the STEM fields. I voted!!
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Ekundayo,
Thanks for the comments and thanks for the vote!
take care,
Melissa
Brian Drayton
Co-Director
I love the tone of this project, and the community connection. Is there part of this project that involves teachers as well? I would think that'd increase the strength of links between Morehouse and the community. Though it's great for the students to be outside and beyond the walls, and meet scientists and technicians doing the work.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Brian,
Thanks for your interest in the iSTEM Work project. The students are taught by a team of instructors which are comprised of both college professors and teachers from area middle and high schools. Many of the teachers that are a part of the project began collaborating with the Morehouse faculty on prior ITEST or DRK-12 projects spanning several years. Some of the teachers that are a part of the project were also originally students in the DRK-12 program several years ago and were recruited as 11th graders from the local school districts to become STEM teachers. The teachers and college faculty meet weekly to develop the curriculum collaboratively along with the college students who serve as near-peer mentors and TA's for the students.
take care,
Melissa
Billy Spitzer
Kauser Jahan
This is very thoughtful project to enhance diversity in the STEM workforce. Love the use of water for PBL. Please visit our WaterWorks video also https://stemforall2022.videohall.com/presentati...
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Kauser,
Thanks for your comments. Your project looks fantastic. It would be interesting to see if there are any avenues for collaboration.
take care,
Melissa
Kauser Jahan
Absolutely. We can setup a meeting to discuss opportunities.
Billy Spitzer
Executive Director
Shannon,
Thanks for sharing some of the results of this project. I really appreciate the focus on "changing the narrative" about who is involved in science, and the focus on a community-centered approach.
I was curious to learn more about whether there are specific ways that the project supports young people in further exploration of STEM learning and careers, either in school or outside of school. Are there any ongoing connections that students make to the guest presenters or to Morehouse? I was also wondering if you have been able to track student participants over time, in terms of what kind of choices and learning/career paths they are pursuing.
Thanks,
Billy
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Billy,
Thanks for your interest and questions.
Students enter the program in either 6th, 7th or 8th grad and participate in the program for three years. Students are tracked over the course of the grant in terms of both their educational and future career choices. As you probably know, NSF does not provide funding to follow participants past the end of the grant. However, there has been some tracking done with prior participants who became Morehouse College students after graduation from high school.
The program is conducted on Morehouse College campus which the parents report as being a positive aspect as it makes the students feel a part of the college community. It includes a variety of components such as brining in outside speakers from various STEM careers and engaging the students in authentic STEM experiences which are both helpful in supporting their exploration of STEM learning and careers.
take care,
Melissa
Billy Spitzer
Beatriz Canas
Director of equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility
Shannon,
It was great to learn about this project. It was nice to hear about the impact of the program from a parent's perspective. Is parent engagement also a part of the program?
Thanks!
Beatriz
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Beatriz,
Parents are engaged in the program in a number of ways. For example, there are parent workshops during the 3 year experience which address a wide variety of factors such as college credit for high school students and dealing with stress. Parents are also invited to attend some of the field trip opportunities and are part of the audience for the annual student showcase. In addition, parents participate in focus groups as part of the program evaluation effort.
take care,
Melissa
Beatriz Canas
Andrew Jackson
This is a good area of study. Was it inspired by the beginning notice to the quality of the Mississippi River? Harris-Stowe is located near the Mississippi River. During one of our MSEIP discussion sessions we briefly explored the status of rivers and tributaries along the Mississippi. We were surprised to see what changes are occurring. It was also enlightening to see the impact of rivers on the Business World.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Andrew,
Thanks for your interest in the program. I do not believe that it was inspired by the Mississippi River water quality, but the students did learn about the Flint River water crisis and the environmental justice issues related to this.
take care,
Melissa
Dorothy Bennett
Appreciate that you made connections to environmental justice issues with the Flint River! Some of the work that my colleagues are doing at NYSCI on environmental sustainability argue often that people of all ages really don't know where their water comes from, what happens along the way on its travels from natural sources to the faucet in you home. Getting people to think about water as system is important and wondering how, if at all, you addressed these issues.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Dorothy,
Thanks for your interest. The students had the opportunity to go to Cascade Nature Preserve to test the water quality. This preserve has a springhouse and was a prior water source allowing for the discussion of where water comes from that ends up in the tap. However, I am not sure if it is currently used as a commercial or public water source.
take care,
Melissa
Brian Drayton
Co-Director
This interesting discussion has raised another question for me: Sustianability — of your project, I mean. It seems to me that with the deep community roots you've developed, this project could become a lasting feature of your landscape. Are there potential partners (e.g. more teachers or schools, local environmental action groups, public service groups like Lions or Kiwanis) that are clamoring to join?
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Brian,
Some of the teachers have been involved in the program for a very extended period of time, while additional teachers join the collaboration over time. As with most projects, the challenge for sustainability is one of funding the effort rather than one of local interest.
take care,
Melissa
Daniel McGarvey
This one caught my attention immediately. A great concept with a tailored audience. And Morehouse seems like the perfect institution to run the project. I read a bit more about iSTEM-WORK on the project website and noticed an interesting detail: the project is focusing on students from grades 6-10. That's a non-conventional age group, straddling the middle to high school transition. I'd be curious to know what the original intent was and if/how it has benefit the program?
Billy Spitzer
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Daniel,
Thanks for your interest in iSTEM-Work.
The original intent of choosing this age range was to interact with the students while they were in middle school since early recruitment of students is critical for the integration of underrepresented minorities in STEM fields. Early recruitment has been demonstrated to have a plethora of benefits including: prevention of early attrition from available student pools, remedial assistance while academic problems are relatively minor, increased advisement for course selection, and enhanced access to supplemental STEM opportunities, enhanced mentoring and advisement for college admissions, increased access to positive role models; and enhancement of content knowledge (Davis & Davidson, 1982; George, Neale, Van Horne, & Malcolm, 2001; Kimmel & Cano, 2001; Maton, Hrarbowski, & Schmitt, 2000; Kardash, 2000; McNally, 2006; Chen & Weko, 2009; Anderson & Michener, 1994; Campbell, Hombo, Shackford, & Mazzeo, 2000; Denes & Highsmith, 1998; Matyas & Malcom, 1991).
Students enter the program in either 6th, 7th or 8th grad and participate in the program for three years. So, some students are in the program from 6th-8th grade, others from 7th-9th grade and some from 8th-10th grade. Students enter the program with a wide range of STEM competencies and the three grades are spilt into 2 groups largely based on their entering math levels. Prior work by this team has determined that a beginning step in this process is assessing students’ strengths and challenges in order to tailor the program to levels that are academically challenging and socially appropriate for the student. Multiple research studies document a significant percentage of underrepresented and minority incoming college freshmen have not had adequate STEM preparation opportunities required to be successful in a STEM majors (Rose, 2006; Boa, Cai, Koenig, Fang, Han, Wang, Liu, Ding, Cui, Luo, Wang, Li, & Wu, 2009 and Ryder, Leach, & Driver, 1999). ISTEM-WORK was differentiated to meet the explicit needs of Black Male students. Students work on above grade level STEM projects throughout the 3 years and so often experience various concepts in the classroom after having already been exposed to these concepts and/or having already worked with these concepts in the iSTEM-Work program. This grade range facilitates a smooth middle school to high school transition with two-thirds of the students entering high school at some point in the program and the remaining third readied for that transition.
take care,
Melissa
Billy Spitzer
Daniel McGarvey
Excellent. I was guessing you had thought this through pretty carefully. Thanks for sharing the insight! It will actually be helpful in some of my future work.
Lizzy Cowan
I'm glad to hear this is a project in my local community! You mentioned that this year the students are investigating the characteristics of water. Are all students working on this project or is it focused to a specific grade level? Maybe we can do a workshop together in the future! Great video!
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Lizzy,
iSTEM-Work is located in Atlanta, GA. It looked like your project was in CA. Does this mean you have branches here in GA? All the students work on the project in small groups.
take care,
Melissa
Neela White
Great video! Great connection for the students to understand issues related to the community and the use of STEM to find solutions.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Neela,
Thanks for your comments.
take care,
Melissa
Nastassia Jones
I’m stopping by as a GA girl to show my excitement for the work that this project is contributing to diversifying STEM. Also, I’m in Louisiana and our project theme is wetlands to bring attention to the need for conservation due to issues like flooding in areas where people of color are concentrated. I’m so happy to see that this project covers water as an environmental justice focus. Please check out my project’s video as well
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Nastassia,
Thanks for your interest in the iSTEM project. Your project looks great especially having the students develop virtual field trips for other students using the virtual reality system.
take care,
Melissa
Thaddeus I
I love the work that Morehouse College is doing with its' STEM Program geared toward African American Males. I truly appreciate the program's forward thinking, interaction with societies affairs, and post high school readiness for our young men. The lessons learned and relationships built are invaluable for our future professionals. Thank you for all that you do!
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Thanks Thaddeus!
Melissa
Abigail Helsinger
I loved hearing about this project. Keep up the great work!
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Thanks Abigail,
Melissa
Margo Murphy
Thanks for sharing your project. I love so many elements of it. I am really interested in knowing why you focused only on male students. Thanks!
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Margo,
Thanks for your interest in the program and for your question.
HBCUs like Morehouse College foster culturally responsive scientific identity and achievement with scientific identity being correlated with scientific achievement (White, DeCuir-Gunby, and Kim, 2019). Morehouse College has extensive experience with Black Male STEM education and this project has an extensive mentoring component with both faculty mentors as well as near-peer student mentors. Morehouse is in a unique position to mentor young Black Male STEM students due to its all-male student body.
The workforce is being shaped by STEM, thus it is imperative that the perception of STEM and science as a career is changed for young males of color. Aschbacher, Ing, and Tsai (2013) surveyed 7th through 12th grade students and determined students who persisted in STEM, compared to those who dropped out of the pipeline, had the opportunity to experience compelling authentic STEM experiences outside of school. By providing young Black Males a learning environment encompassed at an HBCU for Black men, students are able to see themselves in their instructors who are experienced in making learning opportunities culturally relevant and in providing a space for students to explore and develop who they might want to be. In addition to providing middle school students an authentic STEM experience outside of school, ISTEM-WORK desires to change the perception of learning from being asynchronous and compartmentalized to a cross-curricular approach to learning that integrates STEM into a cultural force by promoting team-building environments, allowing the perception of STEM to be synonymous with something broader than school.
take care,
Melissa
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Hi everyone,
Thanks for the wonderful discussion.
You can view related videos by this team at
https://multiplex.videohall.com/presentations/2051 iSTEM-Xe: Implications of COVID-19 on the Black Community 2021
https://multiplex.videohall.com/presentations/1778 Morehouse iSTEM-Xe: Empowering the Next Generation of STEM 2020
https://multiplex.videohall.com/presentations/1149 iSTEM Transforming the Educational Landscape 2018
Take care,
Melissa