Minority students choose STEM careers at lower rates, a phenomenon reflected in the low number of minority professionals in wildlife and aquaculture careers. To remedy this gap, the BIAquariumSTEM program of the Belle Isle Aquarium, created a scalable program of teacher training, student field trips, and follow-up activities at a public aquarium for students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD). DPSCD, is a large school system with ~97% of minority students. The goal is to improve the knowledge of life science fundamentals of fifth grade students and to increase their interest in STEM topics and careers. BIAquariumSTEM focuses on assisting teachers to stimulate interests of a large number of diverse students during and after brief but exciting field trips investigating food webs at the aquarium.
Teachers are recruited steadily throughout the school year. After registration and research consent, teachers attend a week-long summer training program before the new school year. Once school is in session, classroom visits to participating classes are conducted to gauge the students overall understanding of the investigative topic and field trips are scheduled. Follow up activities include published lesson plans, focus groups, a micro-grants program, sponsorship, volunteer opportunities, and learning communities. The quantitative effects of the program are analyzed based on student attitudes, knowledge, and behavior, and the impact of the professional development activities on teachers’ classroom practice and confidence about teaching science. In addition to standardized tests and surveys of students and teachers, success of the program is largely measured by the involvement of teachers and students in the follow-up activities and the quality of the resultant projects.
Results/Conclusions
In the first of three years, 17 teachers registered for the training program. Of the 17, 9 participated in the training and of those 9 only 6 continued with scheduling field trips totaling 187 students surveyed. The second year 44 teachers registered; 22 participated in the training; 13 teachers continued with field trips totaling 500 students surveyed. Teacher and student pre- and post-surveys, analysis of projects, and observation protocol data are still being analyzed. The post surveys for the first year revealed a 22% increase in teacher preparedness to teach science. This indicates a net-positive reaction to the program. In the second year of the 13 teachers to participate, 3 are scheduled to present project related experiences at professional conferences and 5 teachers developed lesson plans to topics related to this project.