College of Engineering and Applied Science

Bridging Colorado and Mongolia Through Science and Cultural Exchange

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:22:26 +0000

Bridging Colorado and Mongolia Through Science and Cultural Exchange Arielle Wiedenbeck Tue, 08/27/2024 - 15:22

Arielle Wiedenbeck

The Science-Engineering Inquiry Collaborative in Rural Colorado program, otherwise known as SCENIC, has been conducting programming in Colorado public schools for more than 10 years. On its program page, SCENIC is described as connecting “CU �鶹ӰԺ faculty and students with rural high schools to develop student-driven, inquiry-based science projects.” This year, a multi-year partnership between SCENIC’s program lead and co-founder, Associate Research Professor Daniel Knight, and two organizations in Mongolia allowed SCENIC to spread its wings.

In 2019, Public Lab Mongolia visited CU �鶹ӰԺ and the lab of Professor Michael Hannigan, Knight’s partner in developing the Air Quality Inquiry Curriculum (AQ-IQ). Per their website, Public Lab Mongolia specializes in “community research in climate change, air pollution, urban services, and natural resources.” Later that same year, Hannigan and Knight began weekly virtual meetings with Public Lab Mongolia with the goal of transferring AQ-IQ materials to Mongolian schools. This partnership led to the implementation of SCENIC-inspired programming in five high schools in Ulaanbaatar led by students at the National University of Mongolia.

Daniel Knight in Harhorin, Mongolia

Knight planned for the SCENIC group to travel to Mongolia in the summer of 2020 to further develop the partnership, but the trip was scrapped due to COVID. In late June 2024, Knight and two students — one undergraduate and one graduate — finally embarked on their long-awaited trip to Ulaanbaatar.

“It’s a long time coming,” Knight said. “We worked with them remotely for four years, but this was our first official SCENIC visit.”

The first component of the trip was to run workshops for high schoolers and college undergraduates. CU �鶹ӰԺ students charged with leading these workshops took an innovative approach to developing the curriculum.

“We had one student from the air quality section, AQ, and then one student from the soil quality section, SQ,” Knight said. “They actually developed a combined workshop, which we haven’t really done before. Usually, we run AQ and SQ separately, but they wove together the two curricula to run a four-day workshop for full days at the National University of Mongolia and a half-day workshop out in a rural setting for the college students.”

In Colorado, the SCENIC program is integrated into the curricula of select high school science classes. Knight explained that, in these scenarios, there will naturally be students who aren’t as interested in the material. Because of the selectivity in choosing participants for the workshop in Mongolia, Knight found himself impressed and appreciative of the effort the Mongolian students showed.

“We had over a hundred applicants for the workshop. We whittled it down to 15, which is…our usual size for a section. They were excellent students,” Knight said. “That was really neat and special to see how engaged they were in the curriculum, and how they totally fleshed out four full days working on their projects and probably would have gone longer if we had given them the time.”

The other main component of the trip was a cultural exchange. Through a variety of activities, Knight and the CU �鶹ӰԺ students deepened their understanding of Mongolian culture.

The group traveled to rural Harhorin, a UNESCO World Heritage site and the ancient capital of the Mongolian Empire. They saw demonstrations of livestock herding, toured a 500-year-old Buddhist monastery and learned about the living practices of local Mongolians that have been a part of daily life for nearly 2,000 years.

“It was a great developmental experience for me and the students,” Knight said.

During the cultural exchange, Knight learned how brutal Mongolian winters can be. While SCENIC programming in Colorado runs during the wintertime, Knight realized that running workshops in rural Mongolia in the summertime was essential.

“Out in the ancient capital, the [National University of Mongolia] has a field research site,” Knight said. “That’s where we did our half-day workshop. [It] made us all realize we could easily run a summer camp there, and maybe focus closer to the city for the winter programs.”

For Knight, a major takeaway from the trip was seeing that, despite the differences and distance between Mongolia and Colorado, the workshops were just as impactful.

“Young people just get very excited about a personal project in a local and community-based setting,” Knight said. “[They find it] way better than using textbook datasets that aren’t really related to their personal experiences.”

The SCENIC program is funded in part by the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship. Travel funds to Mongolia were supported through a Tier 1 grant.

Off

Traditional

White

SCENIC and Pueblo’s East High School: A New Approach to Science Class

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Thu, 30 May 2024 17:29:59 +0000

SCENIC and Pueblo’s East High School: A New Approach to Science Class Arielle Wiedenbeck Thu, 05/30/2024 - 11:29

Arielle Wiedenbeck

What is a regular Tuesday for many students at Pueblo East High School is a special day for students in Ms. Turner’s chemistry class. This group of students has been working for the entire semester with CU �鶹ӰԺ graduate students on projects about air quality, and today they get to present their months of hard work to their peers and CU �鶹ӰԺ representatives at a symposium.

The projects stem from a partnership between Pueblo East High School and the Science-Engineering Inquiry Collaborative in Rural Colorado, otherwise known as SCENIC. Developed by Daniel Knight and Michael Hannigan, both professors in CU �鶹ӰԺ’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the SCENIC program aims to provide STEM education resources to underserved, rural K-12 schools. This is achieved with collaborations between the schools and CU �鶹ӰԺ graduate students to create projects that are “student-driven” and “inquiry-based,” per the program’s webpage.

This is the first year the program has partnered with Pueblo East.

“It is always nice to see a school execute a successful first symposium,” said Knight. “Pueblo East pulled it off by conducting well organized, original posters and preparing their students for the presentation.”

This year, students utilized air quality monitoring technology called Pods developed at CU �鶹ӰԺ to investigate air quality in particular areas of interest related to their lives. Some of the areas students measured were the cafeteria kitchen, the gym and even inside wind instrument. Aunalise Sandoval and Aryonna Pineda decided to measure the air quality at their local zoo.

“We went to different animal exhibits…both indoor and outdoor,” said Aunalise. “The indoor enclosures picked up way more data than the outdoor enclosures did. I really liked this project.”

Both Aunalise and Aryonna said that they had never been to the zoo before this project, and they appreciated the opportunity to explore a new place in their community.

Another valuable aspect of the project was the hands-on experience students had with the Pod.

“It was fun to set it [the Pod] up and see how it collects stuff. I’m kinda used to just doing on-paper stuff. The fact that we got to compare air quality…I’ve never really done a project like that,” said Ricardo Garcia, who chose to measure the air quality in the school’s cafeteria kitchen. “I found it really fun to do and more interesting than just writing stuff down.”

Students in the class learned how to operate the Pod and received guidance on their projects from Patrick Weicko and Mateo Ramis, both CU �鶹ӰԺ graduate students.

“I was really excited to see these pretty shy and reserved students share my excitement in their projects,” Weicko said. “All their ideas had come from personal questions about air quality in their lives, and the questions they had for me really reflected how invested in their projects they were.”

The students shared a similar appreciation for their CU �鶹ӰԺ collaborators.

“They really put a lot of time and effort into the project and helping us,” said Pineda.

Ramis hopes that the program has a lasting impact on the students and their community.

“I come from a really big city, there’s a lot of pollution there, and I don’t think we do much [about it],” said Ramos. “If [the students] get to help people in the future, and it could help air quality wherever they are, I think that would be great.”

Weicko also expressed how essential Emma Turner, the teacher whose classroom the SCENIC project worked with, was to the success of the project. Outside of the times Weicko and Ramis could meet with students, Turner went over the materials and content with the students.

SCENIC wants to integrate high school teachers into the program even more.

“We are looking forward to providing a workshop for our K-12 teachers next year,” said Knight.

For Weicko, SCENIC has also helped shape the future of his professional goals.

“This program has taught me how important these kinds of outreach initiatives are,” said Weicko. “In high school, college was not optional for me, and hearing how many students did not see college as a path they were interested in was eye-opening. I want to continue this sort of outreach through my PhD and onwards, to at least give students an idea of what an engineer/scientist is and hopefully encourage them to go to college.”

The SCENIC program is funded in part by the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship.

Off

Traditional

White

Meet a scientist, be a scientist: CU �鶹ӰԺ’s S.C.O.P.E. emphasizes inclusion

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 23:07:01 +0000

Meet a scientist, be a scientist: CU �鶹ӰԺ’s S.C.O.P.E. emphasizes inclusion Arielle Wiedenbeck Wed, 02/21/2024 - 16:07

Jane Appel

The Science Community Outreach Program and Education (S.C.O.P.E) started out with a goal of diversifying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) industries. The program works with underrepresented middle schoolers to build a science identity before kids lose interest or think they cannot be scientists because of a lack of representation. S.C.O.P.E. uses the message “meet a scientist, be a scientist” to encompass its goal.

Briana Aboulache, current president of S.C.O.P.E., explained, “We want [middle school] students to be able to meet fellow scientists and see what a scientist looks like. Scientists can look like anybody as long as you are curious.”

The program, a grant recipient of the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (formerly named the Office for Outreach and Engagement), was created in 2020 by Megan Mitchell and a team of graduate students based out of CU �鶹ӰԺ’s Biochemistry Department. In just three years, the program has expanded from only microscopy lessons to include microscopy, microbiology, chemistry and biology experiments.

S.C.O.P.E. works by having volunteers—whether they be STEM undergraduates, graduate students, or faculty—go into classrooms and guide middle school students through various scientific experiments. The students learn that science is fun and that there are people in their own community who want to help them explore the science field.

A subcommittee of S.C.O.P.E.’s board of directors creates the experiments and curriculum for the volunteers to lead the middle schoolers through. The team consults the state and federal Colorado Academic Standards, Science 6-8 and Next Generation Science Standards to ensure the experiments coincide with the middle school science curriculum. Many of the subcommittee members also have prior experience in teaching and pedagogy.

The experiments are designed to ensure joy while learning. For example, to learn chemistry, the students examine slime and what makes it sticky. In a post-class survey given to hosting middle school teachers, one stated that the students loved making and observing slime the best because it is something they are already familiar with. Another lesson the students enjoyed was using a microscope to examine pond water and organisms invisible to the naked eye. After that experiment, students told the S.C.O.P.E. volunteers that they were amazed at how many small structures they could see within the algae they took from a pond nearby.

Teachers are inclined to work with S.C.O.P.E. because it’s unique. S.C.O.P.E. is completely free to teachers and provides all the materials needed for each experiment. . It is also the only time when there are 10+ adults in the classroom, often making the student-to-adult ratio 4:1.

Aboulache explained that the ratio of adult scientists to students is important because small groups equate to one-on-one attention and an opportunity for students to interact with a diverse group of scientists. Students can also get all their questions answered and their curiosities entertained.

Young students and their teachers aren’t the only ones gaining from this experience; the volunteers from CU �鶹ӰԺ benefit, too. S.C.O.P.E offers the opportunity for scientist volunteers to earn hours towards a teaching certificate. They also learn how to break down difficult STEM concepts for new audiences, translating into the ability to communicate their own work to audiences outside of the STEM world.

“We don't live in isolation,” said Aboulache, “We live in a community of people, and we are interacting with the next generation of scientists and future thinkers. So, I think it’s important for the volunteers and faculty to invest in the education of the next generation.”

The importance of S.C.O.P.E. engaging with underrepresented youth does not go unnoticed. The program's intention is to address educational inequalities and help close the achievement gap that persists and grows during middle school years, especially in science.

“By providing additional resources, support and opportunities to underrepresented students, programs like S.C.O.P.E. can help ensure that all students have the chance to succeed academically,” said Aboulache.

One volunteer stated they liked watching the kids get increasingly excited about science as each session went on because it made the program feel directly impactful, especially when some kids' excitement levels went from zero to much higher.

Students feel the power of diversity, equity, and inclusion in science through S.C.O.P.E. One wrote, “A scientist is someone who enjoys science and is eager to learn science. Anyone can be a scientist.”

S.C.O.P.E. is bridging the gap between university and community life one classroom at a time. Members intend to reach more schools in the cities surrounding CU �鶹ӰԺ and continue their journey to help diversify STEM fields.

Chelsea Toner, a former S.C.O.P.E. board member, summed up their purpose, “We want to inspire the next generation, and if we don’t get out there and do that, then how are they ever going to make it?”

For more information about S.C.O.P.E. visit /outreach/scope/.

Off

Traditional

White

A Connection that Crosses 250 Miles

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 19:26:17 +0000

A Connection that Crosses 250 Miles Arielle Wiedenbeck Wed, 11/29/2023 - 12:26

Arielle Wiedenbeck

Grand Junction and �鶹ӰԺ sit on opposite sides of the Continental Divide. As far apart as these cities are, they’re brought together by a commitment to water conservation, as years of heavy drought dwindle the state’s water supply. Rooted in this shared commitment is Crossing the Divide: a program that fosters student collaboration across CU �鶹ӰԺ and Grand Junction’s Colorado Mesa University (CMU) at the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) Water Forum. The forum, which was hosted at CMU from Oct. 30-31, brought together water “professionals, scholars and stakeholders” to “promote dialogue” and “address the water challenges facing the Upper Colorado River Basin,”as stated on the conference website.

“I saw a good opportunity to pair students with water professionals with everyone meeting at the conference in person,” said Joel Scholtes, a professor of Civil Engineering at CMU and head of the Crossing the Divide program. “The idea of this kind of mentorship program is to link students with professionals to utilize their experience and networks to lead (hopefully) to job opportunities and an expanded network.”

Jorge Santiago Ramírez (left) and Kaitlyn Bishay (right) examine Ramírez’s research poster at the 2023 Upper Colorado River Basin Water Forum.

“Talking to Mitchell has given me another perspective on what water consulting in Colorado could look like,” said Ramírez. Ramírez, who hopes to work in water consulting after completing his PhD, said Dorsk helped him apply for internships and shared valuable knowledge about the field.

Jorge Santiago Ramírez (left) and Kaitlyn Bishay (right) examine Ramírez’s research poster at the 2023 Upper Colorado River Basin Water Forum.

Beyond connecting students with mentors at the UCRB Water Forum, there was a unique opportunity for CU �鶹ӰԺ students to understand how water challenges in �鶹ӰԺ differ from those in Grand Junction.

“As a person who works in urban hydrology, I think that most of the time, we only hear about what is happening on Colorado’s Front Range,” said Ramírez. At the UCRB Water Forum, Ramírez said he gained valuable insights about the water-related challenges facing the Western Slope, as well as some potential solutions.

Nicholas Guthro, a graduate student at CU �鶹ӰԺ who presented his research on water usage in arid regions at the UCRB Water Forum, said the most fulfilling part was helping CMU undergraduates interested in water issues feel more confident about pathways to continuing their research.

“A lot [of CMU undergraduates] seemed interested in graduate school and work but did not know where to start,” said Guthro. “I enjoyed giving them insight to what grad school is like and if it could be the correct fit for them.”

Scholtes said this was part of the program’s strategy. By connecting CU �鶹ӰԺ masters and PhD students with CMU undergraduates, the CMU students were not only “exposed to grad school as a career path,” but also, as majority environmental science majors, they learned more about different degree programs.

Crossing the Divide is funded in part by a CU �鶹ӰԺ Outreach Award from the Office for Outreach and Engagement. The funding facilitated CU Water Experts and students to attend, participate in and contribute to the UCRB Water Forum put on by the Water Center at CMU. It supports a Water Fellows mentoring program, and supported scholarships for the water user community to attend the UCRB Water Forum.

A new generation of water scientists from CU �鶹ӰԺ and Colorado Mesa University join in Grand Junction to learn from experts and form lasting partnerships.

Off

Traditional

White

Imagining New Ways to Teach Science

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 21:44:36 +0000

Imagining New Ways to Teach Science Arielle Wiedenbeck Tue, 07/25/2023 - 15:44

Gretchen Minekime

CU �鶹ӰԺ's Elementary Arts Lab (EAL) is an interdisciplinary team of graduate and undergraduate students supporting elementary school teachers with a multidisciplinary approach to teaching traditional science.

EAL founder and postdoc Emma Antonio believes it is important that members of our society have an understanding of science and an awareness of scientific processes. She wants children to see science in the world around them, and she believes the arts provide an access point for exploration and experimentation.

"I've seen kids understanding things often not taught until university because of the way EAL teaches difficult concepts and because we believe they can understand it," said Antonio. "During COVID, we were online with a class discussing solids, liquids and gases. One kid disappeared from the screen. When she returned, she kept holding her hand up to her camera. She'd gone to get some cheese and told us that her hand wasn’t hot enough to melt it. I just thought, ‘Wow!’ She'd made the connection, gone to her refrigerator and brought an example. Kids learn quicker than we give them credit."

When Antonio arrived at CU �鶹ӰԺ, she wanted to supplement her role as a researcher by doing outreach work—a practice she finds energizing. She sought like-minded colleagues within the College of Engineering and Applied Science and the Department of Theater and Dance. Early on, the team learned that their sweet spot was collaborating with elementary school teachers to co-develop curriculum and co-teach lessons so that content and approaches might also benefit future students.

For example, MFA student and EAL team member Katt Lott worked with a teacher last spring to teach first-graders about life cycles. Students read the "Jack and the Beanstalk" fairytale and planted lima beans. They discussed the story's beginning, middle and end and tracked the same phases in their plants' lives. The students then moved through an obstacle course to help them embody and discuss the stages. Elsewhere, the wider EAL team and the classroom teachers instructed students about volume and pitch by having the children move like sound waves. Another lesson had students work with classroom objects as human machines to demonstrate force.

"Imagination is important, and we dismiss it as we get older. But coming up with new things—like batteries—requires imagination. This way of teaching content involves imagination, which is part of the interdisciplinary value. Art into science and science into art," said Lott.

Students are frequently surprised to learn that what they’ve been doing is science.

"We're trying to go in and do science without the kids necessarily realizing it at first. We want them to know scientists are people and that they can be scientists too. We're taking down the myth that science is just a hard subject," said Chemical and Biological Engineering PhD student Elizabeth Allan-Cole.

“Research supports the idea that informal settings, such as outreach programs, help historically marginalized students begin to identify as scientists and as part of scientific communities,” said Antonio. “I think EAL’s work helps make science more accessible to the elementary students, the teachers, and all of us at EAL.”

Antonio, Allan-Cole and Lott all recognize that EAL provides a fun environment to practice teaching, facilitation, communication and collaboration skills. The lab also offers a place of community for CU students, and working with elementary students provides tangible wins—a nice break from the daily grind. Combining art and science has helped these scholars learn one another's academic languages and to realize that the processes of art and science both start with questions: What do we want to question or explore, for example, and what will we present at the end?

Twenty-one CU students participated in EAL during the 2022-23 academic year alongside five elementary teachers, Antonio and Tim Ogino, School and Teacher Program Manager for CU �鶹ӰԺ Science Discovery. There were 12 graduate students and nine undergraduate students representing the areas of dance, materials science, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, environmental engineering, music, biology, computer science and education.

One CU student shared that, in addition to building experience working with children and lesson planning in a group context, they gained insight into working with people from differing backgrounds.

Four of the five participating teachers recently completed a survey about their experience with EAL. Three of the four reported that the collaboration changed their thinking about lesson planning and found their interactions with CU students valuable and enriching. They also reported that the classes challenged their students’ expectations and improved their understanding and knowledge retention.

Lott worked with a teacher who wrote, “My students still know how the puffer fish defends itself due to the song Kat and I wrote and the actions the CU team and my students came up with together. My students asked when the CU team was coming back and often commented on how much they liked working with them (freeze game, obstacle course, small group time). Today, after our art exhibition, a parent commented on how much she enjoyed it and suggested that next year we do exhibitions earlier in the year to build the extended classroom community of families.”

Funding is in place for 2023-24 through support from the CU �鶹ӰԺ Office for Outreach and Engagement, the Engineering Excellence Fund, the Materials Science and Engineering Program and the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department. Teacher training is underway, and EAL hopes to recruit 40 CU �鶹ӰԺ students to work with 10 teachers. If they reach their goal, all 10 teams will boast graduate and undergraduate students from across the arts and sciences. If you are interested in participating, please email elementaryartslab@colorado.edu.

Off

Traditional

White

Ongoing CU research explores impacts, solutions after Marshall Fire

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 23:55:21 +0000

Ongoing CU research explores impacts, solutions after Marshall Fire Arielle Wiedenbeck Wed, 12/21/2022 - 16:55

The Marshall Fire also spurred researchers—many of them personally affected by the fire—to pivot and apply their expertise to the aftermath. One year later, dozens of ongoing research projects continue to explore the science behind what happened that day, the widespread impacts on people, pets and the environment and how we can mitigate future catastrophes amid a changing climate.

Off

Traditional

White