Melissa McCartney - US grants

"Plant blindness" is a cognitive condition in which individuals fail to see or notice the plants in their own environment, often resulting in an inability to recognize the importance of plants in the environment and in everyday activities. In today's world, plant blindness is in a perpetual cycle: children who are not taught about plants become adults with incomplete knowledge about the environment and natural resources. In addition, these children remain unaware of various careers paths relating to plants and plant sciences. One way to address this lack of awareness about the environment and natural resources is by providing more hands-on experiences that allow students to connect with plants and understand their importance in the world. This research proposal will bring together thirteen leading plant scientists to share information and ideas about current and potential botanical experiences. Together, these scientists will design a series of botanical experiences that can be implemented at various universities and botanical institutions as a way to better educate future citizens on the importance of plants in human affairs. Special consideration will be given to including information on how plants are involved in a majority of careers. This original network will continue to grow and to connect botany-focused educators, further broadening the research network working to develop and promote best practices in botany-based science education.

Undergraduate STEM students are usually not attuned to the intricacies of plant life, nor the dynamic role plants play in ecosystem function and human society, a phenomenon termed "plant blindness". Left unchecked, plant blindness has real world consequences, including impediment of effective plant conservation measures due to lack of public support, resource allocations, or ill-advised policies. Semester-long botany courses can help alleviate plant blindness, however, students are less likely to choose such a course if they do not perceive their career choices to be somewhat related to plants. Additionally, botany education has been on the decline in the past decades, both in terms of number of faculty members and universities offering these courses. As a result, there is a need to offer effective botanical experiences to engage students outside of a botany course and to alleviate plant blindness regardless of students' career trajectories. One proposed solution is to integrate more hands-on botanical experiences into introductory courses, but what an ideal botanical experience looks like and what students should be expected to take away from these experiences remains unknown. These questions, and more, will be examined when thirteen leading plant scientists convene at a workshop focused on alleviating plant blindness and increasing botanical literacy among undergraduate students. Specifically, workshop participants will discuss and define exactly what a botanical experience should include through collaborative sharing of knowledge and best practices related to botanical experiences currently taking place at their home institution. This original network will continue to grow and to connect botany-focused educators, further broadening the research network working to develop and promote best practices in botany-based science education.

This project is being jointly funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure, and the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education as part of their efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action (http://visionandchange/finalreport/).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

This project aims to serve the national interest by developing a tool to measure undergraduate STEM students’ perceptions about the climate and culture of STEM departments. Students’ sense of belonging is key in retaining and graduating STEM undergraduates, especially STEM students from populations marginalized in STEM. The project plans to adapt questions from an existing tool, as well as develop new questions about STEM department climate and culture based on student interviews and focus groups with STEM department stakeholders. After initial development in three institutions, the project team intends to implement the tool in STEM departments in multiple institutions across the country. Additionally, the project plans to develop a handbook to guide departments in using this tool. This project should advance understanding of STEM student experiences in STEM departments and support efforts to retain students in STEM.<br/><br/>This project at Florida International University (FIU) aims to develop a research-based assessment tool to measure undergraduate STEM students’ sense of belonging to their department, as well as their perceptions about departmental climate and culture. FIU is a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and will collaborate with California State University, Fullerton and California State University, San Marcos, which are also HSIs. The project plans to adapt an existing assessment tool that examines sense of belonging and to develop new items to probe departmental culture and climate through input gathered from student interviews and focus groups with a diverse population of faculty, staff, advisors, and other departmental stakeholders. In addition to traditional closed-ended Likert-type questions and open-ended written assessment probes, the project plans to develop items based on visual narratives to probe students’ perceptions of departmental climate and culture. The new assessment tool will be piloted with a sample of ~1,400 undergraduate students in biology, chemistry, and physics departments across the three collaborating institutions to gather evidence of validity. Once initially validated, the assessment tool will then be implemented across at least 14 additional STEM departments, with data from the study returned to departments for reflection and discussion. Project evaluation will be guided by a 5-member advisory board composed of scholars from across different institutions and multiple relevant disciplines. Dissemination efforts include conference presentations, peer-reviewed publications, and development of a departmental handbook to guide use of the tool. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. This project is also supported by the NSF IUSE:HSI program, which has the goals of enhancing the quality of undergraduate STEM education, and increasing the recruitment, retention, and graduation rates of students pursuing associate’s or baccalaureate degrees in STEM.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Florida International University (FIU). FIU is a public Carnegie R1 Research and Hispanic Serving Institution. Over its six year duration, this project will fund scholarships to a total of 26 unique full-time students through two cohorts who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biological Sciences. First-year students will receive up to eight semesters/ four academic years of scholarship support. To ensure successful student career pathways, the project will use a community of practice model (cohort) and a network of mentorship (senior peers, faculty, and academic advisors), and will integrate funding with evidence-based academic and co-curricular activities to promote student success and competitiveness in the workforce. Complementary implementations are designed to enhance self-belonging and science identity under an atmosphere of inclusiveness, translating into higher student engagement, academic performance, persistence, and degree completion. The scholars’ academic perspective, ability to comprehend scientific findings, and scientific communication skills, formalized by active engagement in journal clubs, lab courses for undergraduate research experiences, and research internships, will enrich their professional development and contribute to the FIU intellectual environment. This project aims to ensure that 26 historically marginalized students feel included and valued, and that they belong within their academic communities. In return, these scholars will be able to enter the workforce prepared to bring their diverse experiences and work in diverse teams with the goal of developing new solutions for global concerns related to biological degradation by climate change, biological restoration, pandemic outbreaks, and building the generation of science educators.<br/><br/>The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project specific aims are: (1) to implement an effective biology curriculum, the Quantifying Biology in the Classroom (QBIC), which features: emphasis in critical analyses of primary literature, integration of math skills into experimental biology, and the use of undergraduate learning assistants to enhance the academic and professional training of STEM scholars; (2) to enhance self-belonging and science identity of scholars under an atmosphere of inclusiveness by facilitating small cohort-based learning groups, mentorship networks, and research experiences; (3) to implement novel career development modules during the program’s early years, and generate longitudinal data determining the effect of these implementations on student success; and (4) to enhance core STEM competencies through micro-credential professional training. A mixed-methods approach will be used for the formative and summative evaluation of the project guided by a logic model. The evaluation team will conduct annual collections of quantitative and qualitative data on the quality, effectiveness, and impacts of project activities. Project findings will be disseminated to the STEM community at science education conferences, and prepared in manuscripts for publication in science education journals. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.