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OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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Through our various programs (the SMILE Program, Campus Field Trips, STEM Academy, iINVENT, SESEY, DIVE4Ag, Beaver Hangouts, Family Science and Engineering Nights, and the Institute for Reading Development) PCP develops important partnerships with researchers and other internal and external partners for advancing broader impacts of research in society. We have a landscape of practice the brings research, teaching and learning, and community needs together. For the last 33 years, we have played an important role in advancing OSU research impact while broadening participation of underrepresented and underserved youth in STEM education.
Partners: STEM Research Center, College of Liberal Arts, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric
Sciences, and the Science Education Resource Center
Principal Investigator Dr. Julie Risien - OSU STEM Research Center
Oregon State University (OSU) seeks to serve as the nation's Polar STEAM Facilitator through a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. Four established OSU strengths provide leading expertise and capacity: Polar science; Arts and Science Integration; Inclusive STEM Education and Engagement; and STEM Learning Research. These strengths are all guided by OSU’s robust resources for inclusive excellence. We will re-institute, integrate, and expand the reach and impact of the Antarctic Artists and Writers and Polar Educator programs. Our vision is to create the conditions for curiosity to thrive by facilitating integrated Polar STEAM programs that embody inclusivity and authentic collaboration. Our overarching goal is to expand the reach and impact of the Polar STEAM Programs. We will support participants to collaboratively develop professional practices that inclusively serve communities of learners and increase public understanding of the critical global importance of Polar environments and the people who depend on them.
Partners: College of Education, College of Forestry, College of Science
Principal Investigator Dr. Cory Buxton (he, his) - OSU College of Education
This four-year research and development project will work with teachers across grades 3-12 with a science focus on Smart Forestry (efforts to apply a range of modern technologies and approaches to the work of forestry management and production) and a research focus on testing an instructional and professional development model for integrating language learning, cultural sustenance, and knowledge building with multilingual learners. The proposal builds on prior NSF funding from the exploratory LISELL project (2010-2013) and the early phase design and development LISELL-B project (2013-2018) that studied how to support secondary grades science teachers working with increasing numbers of multilingual learners as they transitioned from pre-NGSS standards to new science standards in a non-NGSS adopting state (Georgia). The synthesis of findings from those projects led to proposing a new model for multilingual science meaning making (the LaCuKnoS model). The next phase of the work is to study how teachers take up and iterate the practices of the LaCuKnoS model in a new geographic context of an NGSS-adopting state (Oregon), a new science focus (Smart Forestry and preparing the future forestry workforce), and a new cultural and linguistic context (multilingual rural and remote communities in the Pacific Northwest including both newcomer and Native American communities). While the focus of the proposed project is on researching changes in teachers’ practices and understandings as they learn to apply the LaCuKnoS model, the research questions also explore how the model influences students’ communication of science meaning making, students’ aspirations to pursue and succeed in forestry-related STEM academic and occupational pathways, and families’ engagement in science co-learning, with particular attention given to multilingual learners and their families. The term multilingual learners, rather than English learners or ELs, is used to highlight that students must be supported and challenged to use all of the linguistic resources at their disposal to make meaning in science.
Partners: OSU Extension 4-H Programs, Washington 4-H Program, Oregon and Washington Agriculture in the Classroom Foundations
Principal Investigator Dr. Susan Rowe – Director, OSU Precollege Programs
This two-year education project will create an Agriculture Distance Education Toolkit as an open access resource that will offer rapid, accessible, immersive and innovative distance agriculture education to regional middle and high school learners, educators, and trained volunteers from rural and underserved communities in Oregon and Washington using virtual reality tools (VR) and interactive virtual labs, including: 1) VR field experiences in agricultural sites, 2) Related online curricular activities produced for youth with youth contribution, 3) Virtual professional development for educators, 4) Youth Online Programing, 5) Teens as Teachers preparation, Virtual Teen Ag. Sciences Cafes, 7) Virtual Near-Peer Ag. Mentorship Sessions, 8) Virtual Ag. Challenge and Interactive Labs, and 9) a Curated distance agriculture education resources. Impacts include changes in agricultural literacy, increased educators’, learners’ and trained volunteers’ access to immersive agriculture curriculum via VR platforms and increased pedagogical skills for educators mediated by 21st century communication tools and state-of-the art technology.
Partners: OSU SMILE Program, Oregon Sea Grant, the Marine Resource Management Program, and the Coastal STEM Hub
Principal Investigator Dr. Clare Reimers – Regional Class Research Vessel Project Support Office Scientist, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences (Award #1333564, OCE-1748726, Amount: $454,457 for SMILE)
The Outreach and Education Plan of this project has three main components: Public Education, Educator Professional Development and Student Engagement, and Researcher Education and Professional Development. By developing or contributing to educational programs and exhibits we hope to help the public understand the importance of the Ocean to the world, country and local communities.
Through curricula, videos and other forms of information that will be shared with educators during professional development events, we hope to increase ocean and data literacy and show K-12 students how scientific observations made at sea are the crux of understanding, discovering, tracking and predicting natural and human-impacted processes within and beyond the Ocean.
In providing professional development opportunities for researchers, we hope to build and maintain effective infrastructure services aboard each RCRV that can enable each science party to set and achieve meaningful broader outreach and education goals seamlessly and with minimal costs.
