Fertilizing ROSES through the STEM: Interdisciplinary Modules as Pre-service Research Experiences for Secondary STEM Educators (IMPRESS-Ed)

IMPRESS-Ed is a program designed to provide authentic summer research experiences in the space, earth, and atmospheric sciences for pre-service K-12 educators at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ). In 2011, the program involved five students and took place over eight weeks with recruitment occurring during the preceding academic year. The program was divided into two modules: A common core module and an individual mentored research experience. The common module consisted of three units focusing on data-driven pedagogical approaches in astrophysics, tectonophysics, and atmospheric science, respectively. The common module also featured training sessions in observational astronomy, and use of a 3D geowall and state of the art planetarium. Participants in the program are also offered the opportunity to utilize the available TCNJ facilities with their future students. Given that a large number of graduates from the TCNJ take positions in local New Jersey schools, the opportunity to make use of these facilities at a future time would be of great significance to them and their future students. The individual mentored research module matched student interests with potential projects. Research led by M.H. Benoit analyzed gravity data from the NASA-GRACE mission to find lithospheric density contrasts beneath the eastern US. A student working with N.B. Magee used data from NASA satellites CALIPSO, CloudSat, and AQUA-MODIS to study the dynamics of convective cloud tops. Research projects led by M. Kavic performed simulations to investigate the possibility of detecting superconducting cosmic strings using radio observations and also designed and constructed a radio interferometer based on the NASA's Radio-Jove program. P. Wiita supervised a research project studying star-forming regions of active galaxies through analysis of images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and GALEX. The research program was also incorporated into the framework of the TCNJ Mentored Undergraduate Summer Experience (MUSE), which provided weekly seminars and community-building activities for approximately 85 undergraduate summer researchers. This program concludes with a large research symposium in which all participants present the results of their research efforts. Initial evaluation of the program was highly positive. All five students demonstrated strong gains in earth and space science literacy compared to a baseline measurement. Each student also reported gaining confidence to incorporate data and research-driven instruction in the space and earth sciences into the K-12 STEM classroom setting. All five research projects were also quite successful: several of the students plan to continue research during the academic year and two students are presenting research findings as first authors here at AGU. Other research results are likely to be presented at this year's American Astronomical Society meeting.