1978 — 1980 |
Chen, Robert |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Sequential Decision Theory and Finitely Additive Probabilitytheory |
0.972 |
1982 — 1984 |
Chen, Robert |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Limit Theorems in a Finitely Additive Setting (Mathematical Sciences) |
0.972 |
2000 — 2002 |
Chen, Robert |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Dissertation Enhancement: Characterization of High Molecular Weight Dissolved Organic Matter in the Pearl River Estuary @ University of Massachusetts Boston
0084154 Chen
This is a one-year dissertation enhancement proposal submitted by Ms. Julie Callahan, a doctoral candidate in Environmental, Coastal and Ocean sciences, University of Massachusetts at Boston and her advisor, Dr. Robert Chen. This project involves collaboration with Professor Minhan Dai, Xiamen University, China. This study will characterize high molecular weight dissolved organic matter in the Preal River Estuary. This project will provide an excellent opportunity for comparative studies of two large river systems, the Mississippi River plume and the Preal River Estuary and will fill a need for information on cycling of dissolved organic materials in these estuaries. This will also provide opportunities for Ms. Callahan to carry out Ph.D. research in China, and for her to gain valuable field research experience there. The Natural Science Foundation of China and the NSF jointly support this project.
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0.964 |
2002 — 2010 |
Smith, Deborah Spitzer, William Mcdowell, Judith Chen, Robert Levi, Carolyn |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
New England Regional Cosee @ New England Aquarium Corporation
This award provides funding to The New England Aquarium (NEAq), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and the University of Massachusetts (UMass) for development of a New England Regional Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence (NER-COSEE). This center will focus on capacity building in the New England region by: 1) providing educators (teachers and other formal and informal educators) with multiple tools to create programs and curricula that convey knowledge of the oceans, and 2) providing research scientists and scholars the means and training to be more effectively involved in K-12 education and undergraduate formal and informal education. All three partners are highly visible centers of public education, outreach and ocean science research and work with a wide network of educators from public, private and informal education centers. In addition, U.Mass has an extensive track record in educating under-served students and has a strong teacher-training program. Activities will include working with informal educators throughout the region via workshops and by providing a pool of resources for prototyping and evaluation; working with researchers to help them learn to communicate effectively with teachers, informal educators, students, and journalists, and providing them with a network by which they may collaborate with educators and the media; working with K-12 educators to develop innovative curriculum modules that teach national and state science standards using ocean science, and to assist in the development of networks and programs that recruit and train more qualified K-12 science teachers. The NER-COSEE will initially work with the Global Learning Center School/New Bedford Public School and Harbor School in Boston to pilot test and evaluate programs. They will also create a Resource Center, housed in the NEAq's Education Center that will make resources available for broad distribution.
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0.901 |
2003 — 2006 |
Shiaris, Michael (co-PI) [⬀] Robinson, William (co-PI) [⬀] Chen, Robert Decker, Marilyn Sevian, Hannah (co-PI) [⬀] Jennings, Clara |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Watershed-Integrated Sciences Partnership (Wisp) Between Umassboston and Local School Districts @ University of Massachusetts Boston
PROJECT SUMMARY
Teacher-Fellow teams in seven Middle Schools (Harbor, McCormack, Woodrow Wilson, Lewis, and Gavin Middle Schools in the Boston Public Schools; Pierce Middle School in the Milton Public Schools; Dedham Middle School in the Dedham Public Schools) located within the Neponset River watershed are adapting existing instructional materials such as FOSS kits to use a study of the local watershed as a unifying theme for middle school science. Data is being gathered from the school playground, the students' backyards and the larger community surrounding the participating schools. Inter-school information exchange enables the students at each school to relate their situation to the larger picture and the community of schools can collaborate to gain a sense of conditions within the entire watershed. Quantitative examples and activities are being emphasized in order to hone students' mathematics skills, reinforce the existing mathematics curriculum, and demonstrate mathematics' relevance to science and everyday life. Fellows receive a Summer Teacher Training workshop in pedagogy, state and national frameworks, and effective classroom management. Each Fellow is then teamed with a middle school Teacher in a weeklong Summer Environmental Science Content Institute that uses specific examples and hands-on activities within the watershed to strengthen the Teachers' and Fellows' science content knowledge and concept understanding. In addition to their classroom duties, Fellows are required to take a specially developed course, Teaching Environmental Sciences and Technology. (TEST), that provides continuing pedagogical and content training. Five daylong workshops are held for all Fellows and Teachers during the school year to exchange information and experiences and provide additional content and pedagogical material. A 1-credit spring seminar is used as a base to allow one cohort of Fellows to pass on their experiences and knowledge to the next. Special events such as canoe trips, river cleanups, Boston Harbor cruises, and citizen science activities help foster a sense of connectedness across municipal boundaries. WISP will be evaluated internally by a science pedagogy faculty member and externally by the Educational Development Center, Inc. of Newton, MA. The broader benefits of the program accrue to the Fellows, the teachers, the middle school students and the institutions involved. The Fellows are developing the interest, skills, and commitment necessary to be actively engaged in K-12 education throughout their scientific careers. Teachers are gaining environmental science content knowledge and enhancing their ability to teach science curricula and to reflect on their teaching practices. Middle school students are gaining a deeper understanding and appreciation for science and mathematics. A set of school districts diverse in size, ethnicity and socio-economics and the University of Massachusetts, Boston are developing a shared learning community focused on common needs and shared resources.
Title: A Watershed-Integrated Sciences Partnership (WISP) Institution: The University of Massachusetts--Boston PI/co-PI: Robert F. Chen, William E. Robinson, Michael Shiaris, Clara Jennings, and Marilyn Decker, Partner School Districts: Boston Public, Milton Public, Dedham Public Funding: $1,497,458 total for 3 years Number of Fellows/year: 10 Graduate and 3-5 Undergraduate Grade Band: Middle School Setting: Urban, suburban Disciplines: Geosciences, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Sciences
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0.964 |
2003 — 2009 |
Chen, Robert Zhou, Meng [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Lagrangian Studies of the Transport, Transformation, and Biological Impact of Nutrients and Contaminant Metals in An Estuarine Plume: a Process Study in An Operational Ocean Observ @ University of Massachusetts Boston
P.I. Chant, Robert (Rutgers) Proposal #: 0238957
Proposal Title: COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Lagrangian studies of the transport, transformation, and biological impact of nutrients and contaminant metals in a buoyant plume
Project Summary The PIs propose a coordinated program of field and numerical experiments to examine processes that control the fate and transport of nutrients and chemical contaminants in the Hudson River plume. Urban estuarine plumes such as this one represent a major pathway for the transport of nutrients and chemical contaminants to the coastal ocean. The fates and transports of this material are controlled not only by the plume dynamics but also by biological and chemical processes coupled to the dynamics of the plume. To investigate these processes, the PIs propose to conduct a series of dye experiments along with continuous underway chemical and biological sampling using a towed vehicle. These experiments will occur within the framework of the LEO-15 Observatory to enable interpretation of the dye study by placing the Lagrangian surveys in context with shelf-wide observations from satellite imagery, surface currents and far-field subsurface hydrography. LEO-15 will be augmented by a cross shelf array of moored instruments to provide detailed estimates of subtidal circulation, stratification and Reynold stresses. In addition, data-assimilative numerical simulations will provide high resolution and realistic hindcasts of the coastal ocean during the field experiments. The modeling will assimilate the dye-tracer data into a 3-D coastal circulation model and guide future efforts to assimilate other tracers into circulation models with complex sources and sinks. The major aims of this work are to distinguish between physical processes that transport/mix material in a buoyant plume from biological and chemical transformation processes as well as the quantification of biological and chemical interactions in a Lagrangian perspective to provide a means to assess their importance in determining the fate and transport of nutrients and chemical contaminants in a buoyant plume. The proposed experimental plan will contrast the response of physical, biological, and chemical processes in the Hudson plume during upwelling and downwelling conditions. A major outcome of this work will be the determination of the extent and biological impact of contaminants in the plume along the New Jersey coast and Middle Atlantic Bight and will improve the ability to predict the fate and transport of contaminants and the rate that they enter the base of the food chain in the coastal ocean.
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0.964 |
2004 — 2013 |
Eisenkraft, Arthur Chen, Robert Zahopoulos, Christos Decker, Marilyn Sevian, Hannah [⬀] Pelletier, Pamela |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Boston Science Partnership @ University of Massachusetts Boston
The Boston Science Partnership (BSP) is comprised of the following core partners: the Boston Public School (BPS) System, Northeastern University (NEU) and the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB), as the lead organization. The Harvard Medical School and the College Board participate as supporting partners. This Partnership comes together to significantly enhance student achievement and teacher quality in grades 6-12 science. The BSP vision is that challenging science courses will be taught by highly qualified teachers; advanced science courses will be accessible to all BPS students; university faculty will work side-by-side with K-12 teachers in science education reform; and structures will be in place to promote student achievement in grade 6 through graduate level in science and engineering. The goals of the Partnership are to raise BPS student achievement in science, significantly improve the quality of BPS science teachers, increase the number of students who succeed in higher-level courses in science and who are admitted to and retained in university science and engineering programs, improve science teaching both in BPS and at the universities, and institutionalize these changes so that the Boston Science Partnership and its work will be sustained.
Distinctive strategies that support BSP in obtaining its goals include: --Combining the College Board's vertical teaming approach with BPS' own Collaborative Coaching and Learning (CCL) model, which requires teachers to inquire into their own and each other's teaching practices in an effort to improve student achievement; --Collaboration by science professors and BPS science teachers to develop graduate courses that contextualize content in support of the specific curriculum that teachers are expected to deliver in BPS classrooms; and --Joining together of engineering faculty and BPS science teachers to interpret the technology/engineering strand of the Massachusetts Science Frameworks in light of the national technology frameworks, and to create a graduate course in engineering that prepares teachers to teach this material as part of the science curriculum.
Evaluation measures associated with project implementation will be complemented by research efforts intended to answer questions such as: What are the institutional capacities and barriers of UMB and NEU that will advance or inhibit the sustainability of the innovations they have initiated within their own institutions through the BSP? What are the institutional capacities and barriers that explain the abilities of UMB and NEU to achieve authentic and sustainable collaborations with each other in order to improve science teaching and learning within BPS? How do the strategies that UMB and NEU use to manage their capacities and barriers to change enhance the field's understanding of and ability to achieve sustainable change within institutions of higher education? What are the roles that vertical teaming, contextualized courses, and the use of the CCL model play in the development of high quality teachers? In what ways does science instruction in university science courses improve as a result of science professors' a) increased knowledge about how students learn and K-12 science education including the National Science Education Standards, and b) observations of high-quality K-12 science teachers and participation in debriefing discussions about inquiry-based teaching practices based on how students learn? The BSP research agenda will be carried out jointly by UMB and the Education Development Center (EDC) with the Program Evaluation and Research Group (PERG), Lesley University, providing leadership for project evaluation.
The work of the BSP has the potential of impacting 14,759 students in grades 6-8, 18,305 students in grades 9-12, 186 full-time science teachers, and 256 teachers who teach science part of the day.
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0.964 |
2006 — 2012 |
Eisenkraft, Arthur Chen, Robert Colon-Carmona, Adan (co-PI) [⬀] Decker, Marilyn Sevian, Hannah (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Track 2, Gk-12: the Watershed-Integrated Sciences Partnership-2 (Wisp-2) @ University of Massachusetts Boston
This proposal describes a Track 2 GK-12 project developed by the University of Massachusetts and three Boston-area public school districts. The program would support 8 to 12 Fellows each year to work in partnership with master teachers in the Boston, Dedham, and Milton public school districts to bring science to K-12 students. The program, known as Watershed-Integrated Sciences Partnership-2 (WISP-2) remains focused on individual partnerships between science Fellows and middle school teachers who work together to modify and implement high quality inquiry-based science instruction within the context of the local Neponset River Watershed. The watershed provides a common experiential framework for classes and field/laboratory modules covering fundamental concepts in life sciences, physical sciences and earth sciences. Partners also include the Environmental Business Council of New England and the Massachusetts Insight Education and Research Institute.
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0.964 |
2007 — 2011 |
Burnham, Gilbert [⬀] Robinson, Courtland (co-PI) [⬀] Doocy, Shannon (co-PI) [⬀] Chen, Robert Gorokhovich, Yuri |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Social & Environmental Vulnerablity Disasters @ Johns Hopkins University
The growing awareness of the impact of natural disasters on human communities has also raised awareness of the need for better measurements and models of vulnerability to disasters and for improved management of information that guides the humanitarian response. A collaboration to develop an integrated approach to disaster assessment will enhance the understanding of vulnerability and provide information for decision making in the post-disaster context. The principal partners in this collaboration are the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (CRDR/JHU), and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University.
This collaboration is a multidisciplinary approach to vulnerability and disaster assessment that brings together the fields of physical science, demography, public health, and informatics. The research will develop the means by which spatial dependencies and interactions between population and environmental variables can be described and studied using GIS models, available socio-demographic information, and data from field surveys of disaster-affected areas with the dual objectives of assessing the risk of populations to natural disasters, and providing information on affected populations to decision makers in the post-disaster relief and rehabilitation environment. In terms of the broader results of the research, modeling population vulnerability and risk in natural disasters, using those models in conjunction with post-disaster assessments of surviving populations, and presenting clear visual representations of disaster risk and impact on populations, will enable governments and humanitarian organizations to make more informed decisions in terms of how to locate need and allocate resources in the aftermath of disasters.
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0.951 |
2009 — 2010 |
Chen, Robert Wang, Xuchen |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Cosee-China Planning Workshop @ University of Massachusetts Boston
Dr. Robert Chen of the University of Massachusetts, Boston and Dr. Minhan Dai of Xiamen University proposed a U.S.-China Workshop to plan for the establishment of a Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence in China. The workshop will be held in Beijing in 2010. The goal of this workshop is to exchange information between the U.S. and China on ocean science education and to explore the establishment a Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence in China. This workshop will be supported jointly by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the U.S. National Science Foundation.
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0.964 |
2009 — 2013 |
Chen, Robert Gardner, George Wang, Xuchen |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Collaborative Research: Outwelling of Dissolved Organic Carbon From Salt Marshes @ University of Massachusetts Boston
"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."
A key, transformative, but often overlooked, variable to understanding the coupled terrestrial and marine carbon cycles lies in the transfer of carbon from land to ocean. The Gulf of Mexico is a major source of uncertainty in the North American carbon budget, and is characterized by a significant land-ocean boundary, coastal wetlands, intertidal salt marshes, shallow estuaries and dynamic carbon exchange across short distances. Very little is known about the magnitude and fate of organic matter that originates in intertidal marshes and enters the coastal ocean due the complexity of the tidal creek-marsh system, the dynamic nature of intertidal and freshwater-driven fluxes, and the limitation of terrestrial organic matter tracers.
In a collaborative effort between the University of Massachusetts-Boston, the University of Georgia, Louisiana State University, and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University scientists will utilize high spatial and temporal resolution observations along with discrete biogeochemical sampling and spatially explicit modeling to assess the role of salt marshes in the global carbon cycle. This research will allow scientists to identify the transport and transformation mechanisms behind the carbon outwelling, and by quantifying its bioavailability, assess the relative impact of outwelled salt marsh dissolved organic carbon on coastal and marine food webs.
The results from this research will provide a broad range of interdisciplinary (hydrology, biogeochemistry, modeling) learning opportunities for both the graduate and undergraduate students from all of the participating universities. The PIs will also develop an educational outreach module for K-12 students through the COSEE-Florida, COSEE New England, and Watershed-Integrated Sciences Partnership programs.
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0.964 |
2010 — 2012 |
Chen, Robert Tian, Yong |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Collaborative Research: Modeling Doc Dynamics From Landscapes to Coasts: Hydrological Connectivity and Estuary Processes @ University of Massachusetts Boston
Intellectual Merit: The origin, function, and fate of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in terrestrial ecosystems and its transport processes from landscapes to sea are only partially understood. In this proposed research, statistical and GIS-based transport models are used to study DOC dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems and rivers. The research objectives are three-fold: 1) To analyze the spatial variability of DOC contributions from land surfaces to streams at sub-basin scales. 2) To identify the transport and transformation mechanisms behind long (decades) and short (days to months) term DOC fluctuations due to natural and anthropogenic influences. 3) To predict DOC concentration from remote sensing reflectance, turbidity and chlorophyll in rivers.
In the past several years, a large amount of field data, has been collected including 5-years of monthly DOC measurements in 30 sub-basins, high spatial and temporal resolution riverine observations, and remote sensing imagery. Equipped with these data, the team will rely mainly on an approach that integrates statistical modeling and GIS-based transport modeling. Specifically, they will 1) Use an adaptive varying coefficient mixture model to derive monthly DOC loads from uniform land use types. 2) Construct a GIS-based transport model for routing DOC mass in the drainage stream network. 3) Use a varying coefficient functional linear model and nonparametric functional model to predict DOC through remote sensing 4) Validate the above models with independent data sets from two specific river watersheds.
The geosciences contribution from this project lies in the improved understanding of the DOC export processes influenced by interactions among human activities, natural events, watershed characteristics, and climate. The statistical contribution lies in the innovative estimation and inference procedures that are particularly adapted to this complex geoscience data.
Broader impacts: This proposed research will improve the scientific understanding of carbon export processes from land to coastal waters. Funding of this project will potentially change the public?s perception of the influence of their actions in coastal communities. This research will result in a modeling technique that is suitable for studying interactions among watershed properties, human activities, natural events and climate change. The project provides learning opportunities for all participating students. The methods, models, and data from this research will be integrated into undergraduate and graduate teaching programs in a broad range of disciplines (statistics, biogeochemistry, remote sensing, hydrology, and modeling). The collaboration offers students access to cutting edge modeling techniques and environmental sciences through an equal partnership of two diverse research institutions. Especially, the two female PIs will be valuable assets in guiding female graduate students to become future fellow scientists (statisticians and geo-scientists) with their own experiences. Coastal carbon research-related instructional materials will be developed and disseminated through existing educational programs and The Bridge website. These outreach efforts will strongly benefit from early experience on the COSEE-New England and Watershed-Integrated Sciences Partnership (GK-12) programs.
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0.964 |
2010 — 2016 |
Chen, Robert Eisenkraft, Arthur Pelletier, Pamela |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Collaborative Research: Cosee: Ocean Communities in Education and Social Networks (Cosee-Ocean) @ University of Massachusetts Boston
The University of Massachusetts, American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), New York Hall of Science, and Boston Public Schools propose a thematic COSEE Center, that will greatly broaden the impacts of the COSEE Network. COSEE-OCEAN will use existing social and professional relationships to strategically engage ocean scientists in education and outreach activities by offering them professional development workshops at annual ASLO meetings and connecting them to COSEE Network outreach activities. COSEE-OCEAN will efficiently leverage these existing networks to expand and enhance a two-way exchange of innovation, experience, educational products, professional development models and best practices between COSEE and mainstream STEM formal and informal education communities.
Our vision is that within five years, all ocean scientists will be aware of and have access to education and outreach opportunities within the COSEE Network; the COSEE Network will be able to exchange knowledge and resources with STEM programs nationwide; informal education institutions will have increased their capacity to address public ocean literacy; and a model for implementing a high quality ocean curriculum in diverse, non-coastal urban school districts will be widely disseminated.
Our goals are:1)To engage more Ocean Scientists in high quality education and outreach opportunities provided by the COSEE Network, 2) To deliver high quality Ocean Science instructional materials to a diverse audience in large urban school districts, especially in non-coastal states, and 3) To promote Ocean Literacy through a network of Informal Science Education institutions and individuals.
Intellectual merits of COSEE-OCEAN are to strategically strengthen the interactions between existing networks in order to catalytically utilize COSEE resources in a broader context and to gain capacity from the networks' output, COSEE-OCEAN aims to reach ALL ocean scientists, to target under-represented minority students in urban school districts, to effectively engage students in non-coastal states, and to form connections between existing educational networks.
Broader impacts of this proposal include expanding the COSEE Network to include existing networks of ocean scientists (ASLO), informal educators (ASTC, CAISE), and urban educators (Lawrence Hall of Science and Boston Public Schools), which will strengthen the capacity of that overall network to deliver high quality ocean education to K-12 and public audiences. By using distance learning and working with urban school districts in non-coastal states, we will vastly broaden the reach of COSEE to include a diverse population of students who do not have opportunities to directly experience the ocean. In addition, we will link effectively with COSEE-China to extend the reach of COSEE beyond US borders.
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0.964 |
2010 — 2014 |
Eisenkraft, Arthur Chen, Robert Zahopoulos, Christos Pelletier, Pamela Khudairi, Tala (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Boston Energy in Science Teaching (Best) @ University of Massachusetts Boston
The Boston Energy in Science Teaching (BEST) project is a Phase II MSP that explores the use of one of the organizing principles of science, Energy, as a vehicle to extend and research how teacher in-depth conceptual understanding translates into deeper student engagement, exposition and learning of science. This innovative focus on Energy will allow the Partnership to examine how fundamental organizing principles (e.g., energy, models, scale, systems, and constancy/change) can be used to better teach science at the elementary through the undergraduate level. The BEST Partnership is comprised of the University of Massachusetts-Boston (UMB), the Boston Public Schools (BPS), Northeastern University (NEU), and Roxbury Community College (RCC). The Educational Development Center (EDC) and UMB conduct the BEST educational research and the Program Evaluation Research Group at Lesley University provides the independent project evaluation. The BEST project researches whether and to what extent participation in concept-driven vs. discipline-driven professional development improves grade 3-8 science teachers and university faculty members conceptual understanding, the nature of their instruction, the outcomes of their students, and/or faculty members' interactions with teachers, as well as their thinking about their own research.
The BEST theory of action exemplifies the hypothesis that in order to understand how the world works, people require a deep understanding of the fundamental concepts of science, a broad base of scientific observations, and a multi-dimensional and coherent approach to learning. It recognizes, however, that current science curricula, course materials, and university science departments are predominantly organized into single scientific disciplines. Teachers and students, especially at the intermediate level (grades 3-8), are re-teaching and re-learning the same concepts within disciplinary silos. These conceptual disconnects and the segregated way of teaching fail to take advantage of the innate curiosity students bring to learning and the real-world connections that they experience daily. At the same time, huge advances in science and technology have recently resulted from a new emphasis on "interdisciplinary" or "cross-disciplinary" research. Therefore, the BEST Partnership effort hypothesizes that similar advances in science learning can be made for teachers and their students through a new emphasis on the foundational concepts that straddle all science disciplines. The Partnership extends and modifies two of its Phase I successful strategies, Contextualized Content Courses (CCC) and Collaborative Coaching and Learning in Science (CCLS), by using Energy, a theme that integrates the fundamental concepts that pervade science, to develop better teaching of science at elementary through undergraduate levels.
The BEST vision is one of a growing community of STEM higher education faculty that works side-by-side with K-12 teachers in science education reform; Boston teachers having a deep sense of the organizing principles of science and their connection to disciplinary curricula; and students from all backgrounds entering and remaining in the STEM pipeline supported by the Boston Science Partnership. The goals of this Partnership are to 1) better understand how increasing teacher knowledge increases student achievement and research why the BEST model is effective, 2) increase teacher understanding of science and therefore teacher efficiency and effectiveness at teaching existing curricula, 3) engage disciplinary higher education faculty in a deep discussion of cross-disciplinary research and science education in order to spark new research directions and center institutional changes in STEM education, and 4) increase student interest and achievement in science in the intermediate grades.
The BEST project will result in an innovative instructional approach integrating the theme of Energy, a science education masters degree, a growing community of strong science educators, a highly effective and innovative professional development model for both college faculty and teachers which will be disseminated to other university-school district partnerships, and significant research on teaching and learning.
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0.964 |
2012 — 2016 |
Chen, Robert |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Innovative Engagement: a Mass Transit Model For Informal Science Learning @ University of Massachusetts Boston
Following on the outcomes of an NSF-funded conference to this project's principal investigator, a team of educators, scientists, and communication experts from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, University of Massachusetts Boston, Hofstra, University, the Boston Museum of Science and other professionals is implementing a full-scale development project to investigate the impact of an Out-of-Home Multi-Media (OHMM) exhibit on adults riding Boston's subway system (the "T"). The project's goal is to design, implement, and study the efficacy of an OHMM model for free-choice science learning about our changing climate. A rotating exhibit of twelve specially designed placards, posters, as well as virtual, web-based learning resources linked to the exhibit content will potentially engage over 420,000 adult riders per day along two of the T's four lines.
Wireless access throughout light rail systems and the rise of smart phones represent a confluence of factors making an innovative form of engagement possible. The work is positioned to test this new model for informal science education and potentially could be expanded in Boston and into other cities around the country.
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0.964 |
2013 — 2018 |
Chen, Robert Hannigan, Robyn (co-PI) [⬀] Ivanova, Maria |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Igert: Coasts and Communities - Natural and Human Systems in Urbanizing Environments @ University of Massachusetts Boston
This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) award prepares Ph.D. students at the University of Massachusetts Boston with the skills to understand the interactions between natural and human systems and to develop appropriate policy solutions for urban and urbanizing environments. By emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration and communication, this program aims to enable trainees to apply their innovative and sustainable solutions across geographical, political, and economic contexts.
Intellectual Merit: This program aims to increase understanding of the ways in which human activities impact coastal systems as well as the ways in which changes in coastal ecosystems affect human systems. Trainees will conduct research both in the Boston Harbor watersheds and in the Horn of Africa, in order to assess and address the environmental risks that emerge when natural and human systems interact. The program will engage four Ph.D. programs at the University of Massachusetts Boston ? environmental science, environmental biology, global governance and human security, and organizations and social change ? in the study of these two world regions.
Broader Impacts: This traineeship will promote environmental stewardship and innovation on a global scale by supporting comparative research in the Horn of Africa and in Boston. Trainees will learn from a diverse range of disciplines and perspectives as they become effective problem solvers of complex global environmental issues. Additionally, as a minority-serving institution, the University of Massachusetts Boston will attract underrepresented students to this program.
IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to establish new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries, and to engage students in understanding the processes by which research is translated to innovations for societal benefit.
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0.964 |
2015 — 2017 |
Uzzo, Stephen Chen, Robert |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Integrating Computational Thinking and Environmental Science: Design Based Research On Using Simulated Ecosystems to Improve Student Understanding of Complex System Behavior @ New York Hall of Science
The Computational Thinking in Ecosystems (CT-E) project is funded by the STEM+Computing Partnership (STEM+C) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the integration of computing in STEM teaching and learning. The project is a collaboration between the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI), Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network, and Design I/O. It will address the need for improved data, modeling and computational literacy in young people through development and testing of a portable, computer-based simulation of interactions that occur within ecosystems and between coupled natural and human systems; computational thinking skills are required to advance farther in the simulation. On a tablet computer at NYSCI, each participant will receive a set of virtual "cards" that require them to enter a computer command, routine or algorithm to control the behavior of animals within a simulated ecosystem. As participants explore the animals' simulated habitat, they will learn increasingly more complex strategies needed for the animal's survival, will use similar computational ideas and skills that ecologists use to model complex, dynamic ecological systems, and will respond to the effects of the ecosystem changes that they and other participants elicit through interaction with the simulated environment. Research on this approach to understanding interactions among species within biological systems through integration of computing has potential to advance knowledge. Researchers will study how simulations that are similar to popular collectable card game formats can improve computational thinking and better prepare STEM learners to take an interest in, and advance knowledge in, the field of environmental science as their academic and career aspirations evolve. The project will also design and develop a practical approach to programing complex models, and develop skills in communities of young people to exercise agency in learning about modeling and acting within complex systems; deepening learning in young people about how to work toward sustainable solutions, solve complex engineering problems and be better prepared to address the challenges of a complex, global society.
Computational Thinking in the Ecosystems (CT-E) will use a design-based study to prototype and test this novel, tablet-based collectable card game-like intervention to develop innovative practices in middle school science. Through this approach, some of the most significant challenges to teaching practice in the Next Generation Science Standards will be addressed, through infusing computational thinking into life science learning. CT-E will develop a tablet-based simulation representing six dynamic, interconnected ecosystems in which students control the behaviors of creatures to intervene in habitats to accomplish goals and respond to changes in the health of their habitat and the ecosystems of which they are a part. Behaviors of creatures in the simulation are controlled through the virtual collectable "cards", with each representing a computational process (such as sequences, loops, variables, conditionals and events). Gameplay involves individual players choosing a creature and habitat, formulating strategies and programming that creature with tactics in that habitat (such as finding food, digging in the ground, diverting water, or removing or planting vegetation) to navigate that habitat and survive. Habitats chosen by the participant are part of particular kinds of biomes (such as desert, rain forest, marshlands and plains) that have their own characteristic flora, fauna, and climate. Because the environments represent complex dynamic interconnected environmental models, participants are challenged to explore how these models work, and test hypotheses about how the environment will respond to their creature's interventions; but also to the creatures of other players, since multiple participants can collaborate or compete similar to commercially available collectable card games (e.g., Magic and Yu-Go-Oh!). NYSCI will conduct participatory design based research to determine impacts on structured and unstructured learning settings and whether it overcomes barriers to learning complex environmental science.
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0.91 |
2019 — 2023 |
Chen, Robert Hetland, Lois (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Collaborative Research: Cool Science: Art as a Vehicle For Intergenerational Learning @ University of Massachusetts Boston
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. This program will derive knowledge on extreme weather and its concepts to be shared with youth in the Boston and Kansas City areas. Subsequently, the youth will share this knowledge by displaying it as art work on the rapid transit systems. The art projects will culminate in broad-based exhibition at the end of each group's sessions. The project will involve 200 youth per region resulting in an impact of 1000 youth per year, 80 adult mentors and 20,000 adult transportation riders in learning about extreme weather concepts. Participant organizations are the University of Mass-Boston, University of Mass-Lowell, The Massachusetts College of Art, the University of Kansas Center for Research Inc., and the Goodman Research Group Inc.
The goals of this project are to bring the topic of extreme weather to the foreground by educating youth and in turn having them educate a selected group of adults that use the rapid transit system. Groups of youths will learn about the topic through a series of meetings with mentors who are experts on the issues around extreme weather. The youth will derive their own art-works with their interpretation. These art-works will be displayed on the rapid transit systems in New England (Merrimack Valley and Worcester regions) and the Mid-West (Topeka and Kansas City areas). Using a quasi-experimental mixed methodology (demographics, bus ridership, initial level of science awareness, and interest) the goal is to understand science learning outcomes associated with the creation and public display of youth art. Research questions of importance in this regard are 1. In what ways does blending art with the science enhance youth learning about extreme weather concepts? 2. To what extent does youth art support adult learning of science? and 3. How does regional context affect learning about extreme weather?
Broader impacts will result from the youth diversity as well as the diversity of riders of the rapid transit systems where the art of extreme weather is displayed.
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.
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0.964 |
2020 — 2021 |
Chen, Robert Yuzen |
F30Activity Code Description: Individual fellowships for predoctoral training which leads to the combined M.D./Ph.D. degrees. |
Unraveling the Biological State of Children With Environmental Enteric Dysfunction
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Affecting more than 795 million children under the age of 5, childhood undernutrition is one of the greatest impediments to the flourishing of humankind. Current dietary interventions fail to ameliorate many of the long- term sequelae of undernutrition, including linear growth-faltering (?stunting?) and abnormal central nervous system (CNS) development. This failure suggests that our understanding of the biological state of undernutrition is incomplete, and that traditional food therapies fail to target key drivers of undernutrition-dependent pathologies that manifest later in life. Work from our lab has provided the first evidence that impaired development of the gut microbiota plays a causal role in stunting. Thus, a multi-dimensional view of childhood undernutrition that considers several axes of biological state may be required to move the needle on stunting and abnormal CNS development seen in undernourished children. Recently, a highly prevalent but poorly understood condition known as Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) has been found to cause 45% of childhood stunting globally. Aside from growth-faltering, children with EED are typically asymptomatic; thus, EED is diagnosed by biopsy and histopathologic evidence of villous blunting, crypt hyperplasia, and chronic inflammatory infiltration within the sub-lamina propria of the small intestine. Due to the challenge of obtaining upper-intestinal biopsies from children in a global health setting, most studies have relied on plasma or fecal markers (rather than histologic evidence) indicating an underlying enteropathy, severely muddling our understanding of EED pathogenesis. In addition, no validated model of EED exists, further hampering our ability to develop biomarkers and treatments for EED. The goal of this proposal is to take on a multi-dimensional view of children with biopsy confirmed EED in order to understand the molecular and microbial features that underly EED pathogenesis and that may serve as novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Employing proteomic and culture-independent methods to survey the biological state of children with EED, the first aim in this proposal will identify differences between healthy children and children with EED, determine the proteomic co-abundance network between the plasma and duodenal compartments of children with EED, and identify putative EED-causal upper-intestinal microbes that co-vary with duodenal proteins indicative of inflammation and injury. Leveraging the ability to manipulate microbial community composition and nutrient landscape in gnotobiotic mice, the second aim of this proposal will test the causality of the upper-intestinal microbiota in EED pathogenesis through a longitudinal study introducing microbes cultured from the upper-intestinal tract of children with EED and by sequentially removing members of this community and assessing the effects on host enteropathy. Successful completion of this proposal will unlock hidden insights into EED pathogenesis, inspiring new therapeutic approaches to combat childhood stunting and abnormal CNS development associated with childhood undernutrition.
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0.908 |
2021 — 2022 |
Chen, Robert Zaslavsky, Ilya Mavrommati, Georgia Woods, James Dibona, Pamela |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Scc-Pg: Connecting Coastal Communities (Ccc) @ University of Massachusetts Boston
This NSF S&CC grant explores the role of quantitative information (e.g. data) and qualitative information (e.g. images, stories, social media) in forming relationships between people and the coastal community in which they reside. The project will explore whether the combination of quantitative and qualitative information is more effective at connecting people with their coastal environment compared to using only quantitative information. Members of a Cape Cod community and a Wampanoag tribal community across Cape Cod Bay from each other will engage in separate workshops to document and share the stories, data, and images that connect them with their coastal settings. While these coastal residents live in similar environmental settings (i.e., similar quantitative data), they hold different qualitative information (i.e., different cultural or social perceptions of the local environment). Comparisons of these two case studies will reveal the similarities and differences between communities, and also help to uncover how and which stories have influence across communities. This project will provide a new understanding of the types of information, perspectives, and actions that form robust, resilient, and sustainable coastal communities in the face of climate change.
The overall goal of this NSF Smart and Connected Communities grant is to develop effective and sustainable responses to the climate change impacts that affect coastal communities. Specific objectives include: 1) To promote deep personal connections with the coast through unstructured data such as images, videos, and social media and through structured data from both embedded sources as well as community science efforts using distributed sensors; 2) To expand connections across geographical boundaries among communities with similar relationships with their coasts; and 3) To enhance sustainable connections with place through history and traditional ecological knowledge. The project is based on the premise that the deficit model of education is inadequate for influencing behavior change. Instead, the project is designed to test McGuire’s (2015) hypothesis that intuition, emotion, and community norms are more important to impact behavior change than simple presentation of facts. A series of deliberative stakeholder workshops will result in a co-created list of data needs, communications strategies, and overarching research questions. The project will produce best practices both for increasing diversity among stakeholders consulted in response to climate change, and guidance for effective engagement with communities that will lead to sustainable decision making.
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.
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0.964 |