Premium
Physiology Themed Outreach Event with Multiple Career Level Scientists Generates Student Inquiries about Scientific Content and STEM Careers
Author(s) -
Clarke Martina A,
Sharma Neeru M,
Schiller Alicia M
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2019.33.1_supplement.766.16
Subject(s) - outreach , session (web analytics) , presentation (obstetrics) , medical education , psychology , medicine , computer science , world wide web , political science , law , radiology
Participation in science outreach remains fairly low, largely due to the use of ineffective communication and learning models. The objective of this outreach event was to develop seventh and eighth‐grade students' understanding of basic physiology concepts through experiments and increase their awareness of STEM careers. We hypothesize that interactions with scientists will improve students' understanding of physiology and stimulate interest in science as a career. We collaborated with Lifegate Christian School located in the greater Omaha area in Nebraska. Approximately 60 children participated in three hours of physiology‐based activities instructed by volunteer faculty, postdoctoral research associates, and graduate students. The sessions began with a brief presentation of a physiological system: the eye, brain, heart, or lungs. Students were then able to participate in experiments at four different tables focusing on one of the physiological systems for approximately 25 minutes. The session also included the volunteers introducing their career level and research focus. Each session ended with 15 minutes of question and answer (Q&A) that allowed students to engage the volunteers in inquiries about what they just learned, science as a career, and the volunteers' specific research area. To evaluate the effectiveness of the day of activities, each Q&A session was audio recorded. The students' teachers completed a program evaluation survey to determine the effectiveness of the sessions. Audio files were transcribed, reviewed, and analyzed by two independent coders. Qualitative data analysis was carried out using NVivo 11©, a qualitative analysis software. When prompted, students were able to correctly identify the different parts of the eye, heart and lungs, and the somatosensory cortex of the brain. Career questions accounted for 35% of students' questions, and 65% of the questions were based on the experiments conducted. Regarding experiment‐based questions, 54% of students' questions were about the heart, 35% were about the eyes, and 11% were about the lungs. Students were most interested in the typical day to day activities of a scientist, the various animals used in research how the results are transferable to humans. Overall, 75% of teachers were strongly satisfied with the sessions presented to their students. We conclude that scientist outreach events are effective in generating questions about physiology content and STEM careers. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .