UNE's SPARTACUS Program recognized at National Science Foundation Annual GK-12 Meeting
The UNE SPARTACUS program was recognized at the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, March 26-29, 2010.
SPARTACUS is officially titled "The Interactions of Biology, Chemistry and Physics at the Land-Ocean Interface: A Systemic PARTnership Aimed at Connecting University and School."
Funded through a $2.87 million five-year NSF grant, SPARTACUS is an innovative project partnering UNE researchers and their graduate students with the local K-12 community.
SPARTACUS engages Maine K-12 students and teachers in six Maine districts in inquiry-based learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-related disciplines.
Annual Meeting Recognition
The annual NSF meeting in March brought together 640 representatives from 127 projects and 112 universities, including more than 270 fellows, 150 principal investigators and co-PIs, and 120 teachers.
Attending on behalf of UNE's program was Charles Tilburg, Ph.D., assistant professor, UNE department of marine sciences; Henrietta List, SPARTACUS program manager; Caitlyn Little, UNE graduate fellow; and Amy Williams, Bonny Eagle High School teacher.
The UNE SPARTACUS project was awarded a prize by the NSF for the best annual report, reflecting effort, meeting project goals, and media exposure from a first-year participant (out of 25 universities).
Little was one of 20 graduate fellows selected from 80 submissions to present a poster on her research, and the only first-year M.S. student (the others were Ph.D. candidates). Little’s poster was titled "Movement Patterns of Atlantic Sturgeon in the Saco River, Maine."
The team also presented a poster describing the activities of the SPARTACUS project, entitled "The Integration of Inquiry and Place-based Lessons to Enrich K-12 Students' Understanding of Physical and Biological Interrelationships in the Saco River Watershed" by Caitlyn Little, Michelle Bozeman, L. Jay Williams, Charles Tilburg, Henrietta List, Stephan Zeeman, and Susan Hillman.
Engaging Students K-12
The science that ties the project together is studying the interrelationships of physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and geology in a local watershed using the Saco River Coastal Observing System (SaRCOS). A major goal of the effort is to help the graduate students communicate science concepts more clearly to lay audiences, and in the process get younger students interested in science.
Steve Zeeman, Ph.D., project director and chair of the UNE Department of Marine Sciences, said, "Our hope is not to make everyone a scientist, but to have the students understand what science is, how it is done, and how they can learn on their own. Ultimately, they would be better-informed citizens, and make good decisions about their own lives."
The teachers involved in the project use the graduate students as resident scientists in their classes to enrich the content, and students have role models they can interact with on a daily basis.
The NSF developed the GK-12 program to create strong and enduring partnerships between STEM graduate and K-12 education programs that inspire learning and stimulate interest in science and engineering. Since its inception in 1999, the GK-12 program has funded over 200 projects in more than 140 different universities throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.