P120A210035
MSEIP-CAHREUS at the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras focuses on building capacity for remote learning and research and contributing to the diversity of the national workforce in Nanotechnology. The project's primary objective's include:
- Improving student retention and success in STEM areas.
- Making research accessible to minority students.
- Integrating them into first-class hybrid teaching and research efforts.
The Center's operation leverage technology and hybrid/blended learning and enable high-quality digital learning content, applications, and tools.
Rosa Betancourt
Great project- very comprehensive, innovative and focused.
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Uriel Rivera
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
Rosita, thank you for visiting our video and for your comment!
Maria Santiago
Excellent video! 🇵🇷
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
Maria thank you for visiting our video and for your comment!
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
We are a group of professors and students from the University of Puerto Rico committed to making education and research experiences in the STEM disciplines accessible to all. We are very excited to be able to share our efforts in this excellent STEM for all video platform !!!
We present our latest initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education MSEIP program in our video. In CAHREUS, we work to make it possible to provide hybrid access to research experiences by creating an online platform where students can have access to mentors and resources to carry out their projects. We also focus on fostering diversity and inclusion in STEM through a Role Model program and creating spaces that encourage networking.
We invite you to watch our video and leave us your comments!
Andres Davila
This is great
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Luis Negrón
Excellent work!
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Raisa Jesus
Excelente experiencia formar parte de este video y trabajo! Compartir nuestra visión de la química y lograr acercanos a muchos estudiantes y personas. Mucho Éxito!!
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Raisa Jesus
Excelente experiencia formar parte de este video y trabajo! Compartir nuestra visión de la química y lograr acercanos a muchos estudiantes y personas. Mucho Éxito!!
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Karen Mutch-Jones
Senior Researcher/Center Director
Thank you for sharing your project--this is a big initiative serving many audiences. Impressive! I am especially interested in hearing more about the network you are creating to support high school students to have authentic research experiences. How are you building these connections between university and high school students? Could you mention an example of an authentic experiences they are having...virtually or in the lab. Also, I was wondering how you are tracking network growth or impact. What data are you collecting?
This is wonderful work. Thank you!
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
Thank you for watching our video and your comments! CAHREUS is creating a network to support high school students with authentic research experiences using different strategies. These strategies include monthly visits to schools to offer scientific talks and interactive demonstrations, online mentoring and tutoring, and providing space to present their works. We partner with ten public schools across the island and with no-profit organizations. One of the best examples of this network is our mentoring for science fair projects for high school students. In this experience, the teachers put the students with an idea for a project in contact with. In our center, we identify a graduate student and a researcher that provides mentoring and access to the laboratory to the students.
In the initial stage, the high school student and teacher meet online with the graduate student and researcher to discuss the project and work on the proposal. Also, we provide access to different workshops, including scientific writing and the use of instrumentation. After this stage, we bring the students and the teachers to our campus. On our campus, the mentors help them execute the needed experiments or provide a kit with the portable instrumentation to perform the project at their schools. After collecting the data, students and teachers continue with the online meetings with our team until the project is complete. Usually, the projects are related to community problems such as pollution in specific areas or global issues related to the sustainable ODS. We have already impacted twenty high school students in our first year of operation through this initiative. Eight presented their results at local and international science fairs forums such as the ISEF, the GLOCOLIS & IYBC 2022.
We evaluate the effect that the activities have on the development of scientific skills, the number of students who complete and present their research projects at science fairs forums, and the number of students who apply to research internships or stem academic programs.
Isaris Quinones Perez
Karen Mutch-Jones
Senior Researcher/Center Director
Thank you for your complete response! Partnering with ten public schools is a big undertaking, but so important. By building their capacity, your model could be sustained after your project concludes. It will be interesting to read future research findings that identify which activities had the greatest impact and should continue. That is exciting! Best wishes for this work.
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Chris Atchison
Professor
Great work, everyone. Can you tell me more about the work you are doing to create an inclusive community and sense of belonging for students with special needs, as you mention in the video?
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
Thank you for watching and commenting on our video. To create an inclusive environment at our center, we have created a Role Model program to help foster diversity in STEM disciplines and help underrepresented communities such as women, LGBT, and students with special needs feel a sense of belonging. We offer monthly science seminars in which we bring in diverse professionals who talk about their research and tell their stories of how they were successful in obtaining their professional degrees. Another important event is the annual symposium on the power of women in science. This year, we had over 50 women scientists interacting with our students, telling their stories and guiding them on how to achieve a career in STEAM. This activity was offered in a hybrid format and impacted students from different countries of Latin America, including Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, and Panama.
We are also working on modifying our curriculum to make it inclusive. We have also started acquiring equipment for students with special needs to run their experiments. Next semester we will also begin training our faculty on how to educate to foster inclusion.
Chris Atchison
Chris Atchison
Professor
Hi Liz, great to hear that you're continuing to build capacity for greater inclusion. If there is anything we (www.theiagd.org) can do to support you, especially training faculty, please reach out. Ian Castro, born in PR, who is here at Cincinnati working on his doctorate in geoscience education is focused on the intersection of race and disability. He may be an excellent person to have speak.
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Isaris Quinones Perez
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
Thank you very much! It would be great if we could coordinate to have a seminar or workshop from your group! I would especially like to know about your strategies to make research inclusive for people with functional diversity.
Chris Atchison
Chris Atchison
Professor
Reach out anytime. We can have a chat and I'll make sure Ian can attend. christopher.atchison@uc.edu
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Catherine Horn
Moores Professor and Chair
Liz - Appreciate so much that this project starts from a community-based and community-strengths based foundation. What have been some of the most successful experiences you have offered that have been difference making for students? What are you learning about the multi-layered experiences graduate and undergraduate students have together? Would love to also hear more about what you are learning in terms of particular collaborations and their impact on outcomes.
Thanks for your important work!
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
One of the most successful experiences has been establishing collaborative research groups that include students from different levels, high scholars, undergraduate and graduate students, and researchers.
Working in these groups has benefited all the members of the group. High school and undergraduate students have access to research experience early in their education and participate in workshops to develop essential science skills. Graduate students improve their communication and leadership skills. The researchers have a more diverse workforce that contributes to their research progress. At the same time, this collaboration helped us contribute to the communities near the impacted schools to solve problems such as waste management and environmental pollution monitoring, among others. Some of the collaborative groups are working on manuscripts to publish the results of the peer review scientific journals. Many of the students that participated in this initiative applied to summer research experience
Other successful experiences were the establishment of the Role Model program and the Symposium on "The power of women in science" it allowed us to recruit talented students for our programs and encourage underrepresented students to start careers in STEAM,
Isaris Quinones Perez
Jesús Lee-Borges
Excellent project!! Undergraduate research is a great tool to retain and graduate students. I know how hard to put into a 3 minute video all the work that is being done, but you did an excellent job in showing us all the great work you and your team are doing. Your hybrid research is very interesting and very appropriate for our times. Online and hybrid teaching and learning is here to stay and developing high quality content is of upmost importance!! Great job!!
One question, did you develop this project in response to the COVID-19 pandemic or was it developed before?
"11 recintos una UPR" Proud!!!!
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
Dear Jesus
Thanks for taking the time to view and comment on our video! We have done a similar project before the pandemic but without the online component. During the pandemic, to respond to the needs of distance learning scenarios, we adapted and developed the online laboratory and learning platforms and portable instrumentation kits.
Isaris Quinones Perez
Hi,
My name is Isaris Quiñones from Puerto Rico. I just wanted to congratulate all the team that work in this project. I feel so proud to see the great things the UPRRP is doing to create a community from diverse people that can work and learn together.
Special greetings to Minerva and Yamir, it's good to see you here!
Great job everybody!
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
Isaris thanks for watching and comment our video! Saludos desde Puerto Rico!
Nicolas Santiago
Felicitaciones ,muy bien trabajo . Excelente!
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
Muchas gracias Nicolas!
Nancy Morales
Felicidades 🥳 excelente video y trabajo. Un saludo especial a la Dra. Liz Diaz.
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
Muchas gracias por sus palabras y apoyo Srta,! Un saludo y un gran abrazo!
Barbara Montalvo
Keep on with your great work. Congrats!!!!
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
Thanks for watching and commenting on our video!
Mayra Cruz
Maravilloso video. Excelente iniciativa y trabajo. Éxito. Esto es UPR
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Full Professor- Researcher
Muchas gracias Mayra por tomar de tu tiempo y visitar nuestro video! Gracias por sus palabras nos inspiran a seguir trabajando por hacer la ciencias accesible para todes!
Lorell PhD
Exceptional video!
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Lorell PhD
Exceptional video!
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Jennifer Gil
Amazing video :)
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Yelitce Reales
Excelente trabajo, resulta fascinante ver como se avanza, se crece y se evoluciona en la transmición del conocimiento a traves de diferentes recursos y experiencias que buscan llevar el acceso y participacion a todas las comunidades.
Liz Diaz-Vazquez
Alejandra Cruz
Awesome project, astounding job!
Paola Valdiris
Buen día
Felicitaciones a todos los participantes, es gratificante que compartan su experiencia con el resto del mundo.
Se abre la oportunidad a las nuevas generaciones de crear ciencia desde la cuna
Glorimar Rivera
Excellent video! Proud of all of you!