Incorporation of climate science topics into low-income underrepresented minority communities and students in South Los Angeles
Abstract
University of Southern California's (USC) Joint Educational Project (JEP) annually reaches out to 3000 low income and underrepresented minority (URM) K-5 school students in Los Angeles through the Wonderkids (WK) and Young Scientists Program (YSP). These programs act as supplemental science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instruction programs designed to give students direct exposure to concepts and theories that are absent in the standard curriculum. To address a lack of science education in our partner schools, under the direction of the JEP STEM program's manager, WK and YSP currently recruit 30 USC undergraduate students with science majors and USC graduate students in the sciences each year to work as mentors, course instructors, and teaching assistants in local K-5 schools. This educational partnership brings scientific laboratory experiences and training directly to URM students and their teachers. The multi-faceted goals of WK and YSP are to supplement current science instruction, complement Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), meet Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and state grade-level science learning standards, strengthen science literacy, and promote interest in scientific careers.
Climate change directly affects URM students in Los Angeles and the program works to connect the science directly to their lives and increasing their climate literacy. The program uses undergrads as instructors to expose them to communicating science and connecting their authentic research once they are in the classroom. This model reaches many groups: K - 5 students, their families and classroom teachers, and the undergrad instructors. Professional connections to the NOAA Planet Stewards and Teacher at Sea, PolarTREC, and the JOIDES allows for authentic climate data and experiences are directly translated to this population of students and aims to inspire them into STEM careers.- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMED31C1070K
- Keywords:
-
- 0805 Elementary and secondary education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0810 Post-secondary education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0815 Informal education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 6630 Workforce;
- PUBLIC ISSUES