About Bubble
We often hear that STEM is the “future”, a direct pathway into a successful life and career. But just how true is this? STEM fields, especially in research and academia, exist in a bubble. They are heavily occupied by generations of people with high-income backgrounds and familial connections. Our goal is to pop the bubble.
The Issue In STEM Education
We often hear that STEM is the “future”, a direct pathway into a successful life and career. But just how true is this? STEM fields, especially in research and academia, exist in a bubble. They are heavily occupied by generations of people with high-income backgrounds and familial connections. This gap tends to grow the widest during high school because many districts receive little to no funding for their science programs. This is a critical time period for students because they begin to learn scientific skills which can greatly benefit their career trajectory and endeavors. One such skill is learning how to read scientific research papers. Collecting, interpreting, and synthesizing research is not only an essential future tool for many careers, but also an amazing outlet to begin exploring the world of STEM. This pathway should be made equal to all students, so now is the time to pop the bubble!
Our Solution
“Bubble! Learn Science” is developing an interactive web application, which guides users through the process of reading scientific research papers. By instilling aspects of both simplicity and gamification inside the pedagogy, users will gain a deeper understanding into the realm of academic work and prepare them for a future in science.
In addition to the web application, an objective critical to “Bubble! Learn Science” will be to perform outreach to local schools and communities, particularly in disadvantaged areas. These discussions can contain information from career exploration to real scientific modeling. The aim is to empower students from historically underrepresented groups in STEM to pursue successful careers and surmount challenging barriers.
Curriculum Design
One of the most widely discussed issues in STEM education is the imbalance between Content Area Literacy (CAL) and Disciplinary Literacy (DL). CAL focuses on learning objective facts about different subjects without inherent depth. DL focuses on gathering and utilizing new information about specific disciplinary topics. At the introductory level in high schools and universities, most curricula only foster CAL and never dedicate time towards DL. In order to generate breakthroughs in equitable STEM education, we must shift more importance on developing DL skills.
To address this, we have designed a novel educational tool called the Practicality-Embodiment Curriculum (PEC). As the title suggests, it seeks to emphasize two fundamental pillars of effective pedagogy. The first is practicality – incorporating necessary and useful skills through each lesson, rather than redundant outlines. The second is embodiment – placing students in meaningful roles with specific tasks to allow them to best connect with their learning.
We have broadly developed three personas that students will use to experience different research roles and gain valuable research skills. Librarian is used to find and navigate research, scholar is used to understand and think through research, and statmaster is used to analyze the numbers and trends behind research. Within each persona exists a series of mini-lessons that students will complete. At the end, students will do a synthesis project to answer a real research question and utilize the skills they have gained.
A more in-depth paper detailing our research findings can be downloaded here
