Special - NCSU's Citizen Science Club

STEM careers/curricula predominantly focus on White males. In our magnet schools, we recognize how impactful it is for our students to experience learning alongside/elevating the voices of underrepresented STEM career/content experts. NCSU’s Citizen Science Club has a goal of recruiting for diverse, underrepresented students to participate in Citizen Science projects, so interfacing the diversity of the college club with the diversity of our middle school populations to engage in and showcase learning is powerful! NCSU’s Citizen Science Club students co-planned with classroom Science teachers to locate existing Citizen Science projects that directly align with NC Essential Standards of Science and WCPSS’s K-12 Science Vision for 3-D instruction. For example, the eighth grade science curriculum entails a unit that focuses on water quality. The process involved a planning session with CCMS’s Science Teachers, NCSU’s Citizen Science Club members, and the Citizen Science Crowd The Tap Project Manager. After the planning session, the teachers did pre-teaching related to water quality, specifically related to water chemistry. Students/NCSU Citizen Science Club students, and the Project Manager came to the classroom and engaged with students in testing pipes, analyzing water chemistry, and making observations related to water quality. Students were then able to showcase their learning and results in a Citizen Science Showcase at NCSU’s Friday Institute.

Speaker

wakeed-stem-ncsu-citizen-science-club

WakeEd Stem NCSU Citizen Science Club


Joshua Hunter, Regina Connors, Lindsay Strickland, Jed McLaughlin, Cameron Steitz, Cristina Luna