“Community Problem Based Learning to Prepare Students for Real‐World STEM Opportunities”

Abstract

iCREATE is an NSF‐funded project between the CAVIAT School District and Northern Arizona University's Center for Science Teaching and Learning. The project is designed to engage community partners in a dual‐enrollment (DE) high school bioscience course to positively impact the number of students interested in pursuing bioscience‐related careers and opportunities. The project integrates community collaborations, innovative course design, and modern science technologies to engage students in an authentic problem in their community. A high school level bioscience course has been designed and implemented through CAVIAT, a regional collaboration between school districts to provide high quality career and technical education (CTE) courses. Through the course, project partners engage students in examining community needs regarding the authentic problem of tracking the spread of influenza‐like‐illnesses (ILI) across the Northern Arizona region. Students work with project partners in an effort to design innovative, technology‐rich solutions to address the ILI problem. The university and industry partners bring current knowledge in bioscience and technological understanding of geospatial technologies to the classroom. In this study, we examine the ways in which the project impacts participating students' self‐efficacy, interest in STEM careers, and plan to take part in further internship opportunities. Initial pilot study findings indicate students enjoyed the course, the many challenges it offered, and the opportunity to interact with researchers and community members. Additionally, students' career interest and science motivation increased compared to the control group.Support or Funding InformationNational Science Foundation NSF‐1513198This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.