Hi, Tiffany,  

 Great to see your project's video.  As I  visited your project last summer during your busy sessions the progress is obvious.  I too am continuing to address the development of effective development of support "platforms" to unite sites on shared topics.  Last summer we became absorbed with collecting data from the Eclipse event and building a learning progression with sensors.    I noticed the focus on storm water and would be interested in hearing more about what you've discovered on the water events from the storms over this last year.  Have you mapped out where you are monitoring?  Could we connect to see the data? 

Betsy Stefany Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice 

Hi Betsy! Thanks for checking out our project. 

In response to your questions about site monitoring and mapping: We had our school SMART teams each choose a local watershed to study, with the intent to get data from 12 sites around the country, for a period of Sept - May. Most schools were successful with getting their data fairly consistently, though there were challenges with equipment, site access, weather (winter freeze in Northern locations) and student schedules.  At the summer institute they had learned how to collect data for various water quality parameters including temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity and total coliforms and the data that have been collected can be accessed through the SMART website, under each school profile. The focus has been less on the actual data, and more on the process of getting teachers and students to develop locally-relevant research projects, work with professional and community mentors, collect and analyze data, and present their findings to peers and public. Basically, a self-guided, supported research experience. 

I would be happy to talk more with you about the water data. A couple of teams were interested in comparing data from different climate regions (e.g. Florida vs. California) and it would certainly be interesting to look at the water quality effects of storms. Students will be sending us their final projects by the end of the month, and perhaps some students have done type of analysis.   

Hi David,

Thanks for finding the connection between our projects. We find that the teachers are the key players in the success of our program, and we continue to seek out teachers who embrace project-based learning and bringing real world context to their students. Kids really respond to a motivated (and motivational) teacher/mentor. 

Our school teams collect water quality data and enter it on a google sheet that is linked on our website under their school profile. Anyone can access the teams' data and we encourage data sharing and comparing, especially because we have many different watershed scenarios to compare.

Glad to know that we may have interested teachers in CT!

You have another interested teacher in VA! I love how adaptable this project is. Every community has access to storm water and could contribute to the data pool. Which student projects were most interesting to you? How did you connect groups with mentors?

Hi Sarah, thanks for your interest in our project! There are definitely many avenues that student projects can take with stormwater as the context, and it's been very interesting to see the regional differences. Some students are looking at water quality in their local watershed of choice, and getting some great results based on chemistry, biology, and physical parameters. Some students are delving into more lab-based research, where they experiment with water quality remediation techniques, and some are building devices (using electronics and/or 3D printers) for related measurements. Others are doing their water monitoring and then taking their skills to middle/elementary schools and doing hands on projects with younger students. The SMART management team helps connect groups with higher ed mentors, but really it comes down to the teachers and students reaching out to their local water districts, community environmental/watershed groups, colleges and universities, and other water professionals. One group worked with the city highway department to figure out the location and timing of road salt applications that were periodically affecting the river chemistry. We have seen our school groups take a lot of initiative in creating their own local networks of mentors.  

Hi Rachel,

Yes, we bring students and teachers from the same school, and they comprise their school's SMART "team". We encourage a mentorship model, where teachers who are trained one year become mentor teachers, or "teacher leaders" for the following years. We keep track of school teams' progress via email exchange, phone calls, shared Google folders, and communications with the teams' local higher ed partners. They are all expected to do projects and submit a capstone (summary) project of their research and outreach. This year we're asking for a 3-minute video from each student or team of students. 

The side-by-side learning style seems to vary by school and teacher. Some teams have a strong research component in their school curriculum, whereas other teams do not. Some teams start out already having strong connections with stakeholders and higher ed mentors and others spend some effort in forming these relationships. We haven't quite figured out how to connect school teams with each other on a consistent basis, after they leave the week-long summer institute, but that is something we want to work on in the coming year.  

Hi C.A., through the SMART program we have been working to emphasize the T & E of STEM (as mentioned in the video), because it is typically lacking in most school curricula, despite the increased focus on improving STEM education. Through SMART, the students get an introduction to coding and designing and building sensors, but they also have access to commercially made water quality sensors for doing their weekly watershed/storm water data collection. As of now, our summer institute program is only once per year at UMaine, and we bring participants to Maine for training, then equip them to continue through the school year (with ongoing support from SMART management and their local partner University). Our sustainability and scalability model focuses on training more and more teacher leaders each year, and also collaborating with similar programs with similar mentorship models. We are hoping to be able to expand our summer institute program to other states, as funding and collaboration opportunities fall into place.    

Tiffany, 

  Water phenomenon is part of our summer documentation work this summer.  Following our eclipse project last year we expect to set up reading and other media offshoots.  The STEM Literacy CoP is first setting up to ensure we stay ahead of privacy issues while also build the data to be responsive to the public demands/concerns.  Each paper has had further articles regarding those issues.  Our project spans between both states and this year to Canada.  I will be interested in hearing more about how Maine is planning for the data expansion and these issues as you move forward.  

Thank you Terry. Yes, this is the type of response we are hoping for in students and in teachers. We expect a lot of the students and expect the teachers to have initiative as mentors and provide motivation along with the students.