UC’s NSF-funded Science and Technology Enhancement Program (STEP) helps science, engineering and technology university students bring their experiences and knowledge into the classroom to become educators. STEP fellows take U.S. expertise to the world and bring worldly experience to CPS classrooms. And now they’re taking their experience to Washington.
| STEP Fellow Sarah Pumphrey hopes to assist the people of Tanzania. |
Effective science and mathematics education requires authentic and inquiry-based learning. Students must be able to link the relevance of their education with events and issues occurring within their community. They must be able to experience how it allows them to participate as effective citizens in a technology-driven society.
Project STEP is a joint effort between UC’s College of Engineering and the College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services (CECH) to enhance educational opportunities for scientists who might want to become science teachers.
To that end, Track 1 Project STEP (NSF DGE-0139312), which started in July of 2002, involved 20 graduate and 10 advanced undergraduate STEP Fellows, 36 secondary science and mathematics teachers (from middle and high schools located in urban and suburban school districts of Cincinnati), and 10 UC faculty (from the College of Engineering and CECH). The teachers and fellows work in teams to design, develop and implement hands-on activities and technology-driven inquiry-based projects that relate to the students’ community issues, as vehicles to authentically teach skills.
| Water, water everywhere — but not all of it is fit for human use. |
"Being involved with Project STEP has afforded my students opportunities to experience engineering in action and equipped them with a knowledge of the field of engineering that they would not otherwise have," says Sharon Bachman, a teacher at Hughes Center. "Through my involvement in STEP and RET [NSF Research Experiences for Teachers], I have been better able to connect what my students are learning in the classroom to real-word examples."
In this case, the subject is water.
“This project is breaking down international boundaries,” says Anant Kukreti, associate dean for engineering educational research in UC’s College of Engineering. “Water is needed by mankind no matter where in the world you are.”
| Associate Professor Dan Oerther excels at getting his students into the field for meaningful research. |
Sarah works in the research laboratory of Associate Professor Dan Oerther, one of UC’s up-and-coming researchers. Oerther directs the Water Quality Biotechnology (WQB) Program in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Cincinnati. The research, education and service activities of the WQB team integrate molecular microbial ecology, public health microbiology, and bioprocess engineering to understand microorganisms in natural and man-made environments. In Oerther’s lab, Sarah’s project is one of many focused on water in the global environment.
| Pumphrey demonstrates using sand in filters. |
At Cincinnati, Sarah developed a new design for slow sand filters to produce drinking water for individual families. To make the devices low cost, Sarah focused upon locally available materials in Tanzania. In October 2005 and again in 2006, Sarah visited Tanzania as part of the annual brigade by the village life outreach project — a group of physicians, engineers and teachers affiliated with the University of Cincinnati working to improve the life, education and health of villagers in the Tarime region, Tanzania. Sarah’s research has adapted the technology used to produce drinking water for the city of London, England, and transferred this knowledge into bucket-sized treatment systems that individual families in Tanzania can build in their homes to protect their children from waterborne disease.
| Hughes students (l-r) Rory Soloman, Benjamin Jones and Ricky Chapman. |
Hughes teacher Bachman agrees. "The lessons developed by STEP have enriched my curriculum and enhanced my students' knowledge of STEMM skills as well as enhancing their enthusiasm for science," she says. Her students built sifting screens that were taken to Tanzania to build water filters for an African Village and partipated in water quality lessons. Her students also took part in a water-filter competition in which the students had to construct water filters to filter Ohio River water.
UC is opening doors for Bachman's students in many ways. "The students in my Mechanical Physics classes also participated in the bridge-building contest at UC." Bachman's students are part of the Hughes Program called "CAMAS," for Cincinnati Academy of Math and Science.
| Hughes student Sharmela is proud of what she's learned about water. |
“Fellows like Sarah have worked with their advisors to bring their research into the high-school classrooms in a form the students could understand it and see its relationship to the material being taught to them,” says Kukreti. “The fellows provide a role model for these students who aspire to be like them some day.”
Anant Kukreti was invited to participate to showcase Project STEP at the unveiling of the NSF FY 2008 budget. He will be taking with him to Washington Associate Professor Oerther, Hughes teacher Sharon Bachman, as well as engineering student Sarah Pumphrey and geology student Tony Kramer.
As one of NSF’s chosen 15, UC is in very good company:
University of California-Irvine / California Institute of Technology /Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens / Institute for Cytology and Genetics /Novosibirsk, Russia
The Computable Plant: Modeling Plants and Plants as Models
University of South Florida
Robot Search and Rescue
University of Cincinnati
Sift, Settle, Sip & Save: Expanding and Connecting Countries for the Sake of Water
Rutgers University
Representational Tools to Support Understanding of Complex Biological Systems
University of Pennsylvania
RHex / EduBot Robots
Earthscope: A New View into Earth
EarthScope-represented by IRIS/US Array, UNAVCO/PBO and Stanford University-USGS/SAFOD
QuarkNet / Notre Dame
Compact Portable Cosmic Ray Detector
Purdue University
Chemical Trace: What, Where, How Much?
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Superconductivity & Magnetic Levitation
University of South Carolina
What Makes People and Places Vulnerable to Natural & Human Threats?
Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets
Ice Sheets Remote Sensing and Sea Level Rise
Lehman College / CUNY; American Museum of Natural History
3D Analysis of Visualization in Evolutionary Anthropology
NSF’s Office of International Science & Engineering
National Center for Supercomputer Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Office of International Science and Engineering
Developing the Next Generation of Globally Engaged Scientists and Engineers
Want to be a jolly STEP fellow? The application deadline is March 13.
For more information, contact Project STEP Coordinator LisaAnn Hampton:
5506 French Hall
PO Box 210207
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati OH 45221-0207
513-556-1029 (o)
513-218-3138 (c)
Related stories:
Feb. 5 Special Event details:
What: Open House and Exhibition
Curious about science and technology? Then recharge your imagination at the NSF 2008 Budget Open House and Exhibition. Fifteen NSF principal investigators from across the country will showcase research sponsored by NSF directorates and programs. See robots used in disaster areas, learn about earthquake ground-motion sensors, witness superconductivity and magnetic levitation, see technological advances in particle detection in applications for homeland security, or don 3-D glasses and see high-definition stereo visualizations and much more.
When: Feb.5, 2007, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (2:00 p.m. budget request)
Where: National Science Foundation headquarters
4201 Wilson Blvd., Rooms 110 and 120
Arlington VA 22230
National Science Foundation Presents FY 2008 Budget Proposal on February 5
(NSF press release)
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