Abstract
The United Nations has identified the COVID-19 pandemic as the largest global disruption of education in history. Collaborative and hands-on learning activities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics were particularly challenging to maintain during this period. Future large-scale disruptions of schools are considered likely, leading to questions about how educators can be better prepared. Since 2019, the REACH program has worked with schools in Montana, Idaho, Alaska, and Hawaii to educate students about air quality and health. The program also provides a framework and support for teachers to incorporate rudimentary student-led scientific field research in middle and high school science courses. Through student and teacher surveys, we inquired about how the pandemic affected program experiences during the 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 school years. Responses from 416 students and 31 teachers showed both difficulties and adaptive capacity in implementing the REACH program during COVID-19-related restrictions. It is encouraging to appreciate the resilience of students and teachers as they adapted to emergency remote teaching and learning strategies. However, the extent and the specific kinds of difficulties they encountered may inform efforts to help schools and teachers become better prepared for potential future events that may disrupt in-classroom learning.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 265-277 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | School Science and Mathematics |
| Volume | 123 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2023 |
Funding
The authors would like to thank our funding agency: Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA), National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Grant number: 1 R25 GM129849‐01A1. The authors would also like to thank our participating students, teachers, and regulatory stakeholders for their continued support of air quality research education. The University of Montana's Research Education on Air and Cardiovascular Health (REACH) program engages middle and high school students in rudimentary real‐world scientific research to improve their understanding of and interest in science and to increase their interest in careers in basic and clinical medical research. With funding from the National Institutes of Health ‐ Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA), the REACH program and its predecessor programs (Delaloye et al., 2016 ; Delaloye et al., 2018 ; Ward et al., 2016 ) support student inquiry and research projects centered around environmental air pollutants and human health. Teachers are provided with air sampling equipment, curriculum resources on indoor air quality and health implications, and professional development on how to facilitate student‐led research. Students are invited to study public health issues related to air quality and then design their own local research projects, collect and analyze data, and present their findings. The REACH program emphasizes local air quality research as a low‐cost way to engage students in science practices and public health, “doing” science while engaging with issues of air quality and cardiovascular health. Students learn about timely and important environmental health science content in parallel with learning and applying science practices, including communicating their findings through presentations at science symposia (Kiley et al., 2022 ).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| 1 R25 GM129849‐01A1 | |
| Scottish Environment Protection Agency |
Keywords
- cooperative learning
- ecology/environment
- inquiry/discovery
- learning processes
- projects/applications
- science/science education
- teachers and teaching