Pandemic Programming for an REU: Developing a Virtual Bootcamp and Professional Development Series for the Advancing Space Sciences through Undergraduate Research Experiences (ASSURE) Program
Abstract
This year, the NSF-funded Advancing Space Sciences through Undergraduate Research Experiences (ASSURE) Program operated remotely, and therefore faced the challenge of preparing 10 community college undergraduate students for their first ever research projects and future careers, entirely virtually (See Fillingim et al. submitted to ED032). In response, we developed a week-long bootcamp curriculum as well as a series of graduate student-led professional development workshops and informal discussions with the aim of developing participants skills and building community despite not being able to work in person. The bootcamp, conducted during the first week of the 10-week program, was developed to expose the students to essential research skills and background knowledge, focusing especially on programming, data visualization, and space science and engineering fundamentals. This first week as a whole was designed to be highly interactive and engaging. A collaborative, cloud-hosted and vendor-independent coding environment was a key component; used to help students with different experience levels and computer systems start programming together. We built on the content of the bootcamp with our professional development series. Workshop topics included: abstract writing, crafting scientific posters, how to sell your science, and tips for transferring to a 4-year institution. Our informal discussion series covered topics including: imposter syndrome, burnout, normalizing failure, and iterative processes in science, all of which are especially important to address in a virtual environment. Here, we report on our successes, failures and the challenges faced in developing these activities in a virtual environment. The cloud-hosted JupyterHub environment used for this project was supported by the NSF Earth Cube Program under awards 1928406, 1928374, and by a research grant from Amazon Web Services. The 2021 ASSURE program is funded by NSF grant number 2050736.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021AGUFMED13A..08B