The STEM Outreach in Schools (stemOS) program brings scientists from UT Southwestern into K-12 classrooms. This NSF-funded, IRB-approved program seeks to enrich classroom curriculum by working with our teacher partners to improve scientific curriculum content as well as to define best practices for expert-lead STEM outreach programs.
2021/2022 program | 2022/2023 program | 2023/2024 program
Fall 2022, we focused on the 6th grade life science curriculum at Uplift Williams middle school. The goal of this unit was for students to learn about human anatomy. We helped to enrich the curriculum by working with the classroom teacher to develop teaching and assessment materials and providing hands-on support in the classroom for dissection of preserved rats. The goal was to improve student understanding of the structure and function of mammalian anatomy as well as to understand the moral and ethical guidelines for the use of animals for science exploration in the classroom.
We are assessing the effect of having experts in the classroom on knowledge mastery and attitudes towards STEM field though aggregate test scores on classroom quizzes and a survey about student attitudes about STEM.
Interested? Volunteer here: https://forms.gle/AFtTAfVoE81M1wwd8
Curriculum development: Improve your pedagogical skills!
This year, the curriculum development team helped to shape the curriculum for a unit on anatomy and the discussion of the ethics of the use of animals in the classroom and research. The curriculum coordinators met with our classroom teacher in June and then coordinated with the curriculum development team to strengthen target areas of the curriculum. The curriculum coordinators and development team hosted a training session for “scientist in the classroom” volunteers before the classroom visit in October 2022.
- 2022/2023 Curriculum coordinators: Gianna Maggiore, Irvin Garza & Ria Mukherji
- 2022/2023 Curriculum development team: Ethics subgroup: Keyera Randolph, Matt McDougal, Hunter Pyle and Felix Nitschke. Dissection guide: Lauren Ammerman and Kaitlin Stromberg. Dissection resources and tools: Srijani Biswas, Siva Venigalla and Sawsan Rashdan.
Logistics: Secure survey distribution and collection, coordination of classroom volunteer schedules, communication with our teacher partner, liaison with the school, distribution of information sheets, acquisition and distribution of materials to the classroom.
- 2022/2023 Program coordination: Gianna Maggiore & Carla Madrid
Outreach in Schools: Improve your teaching skills! The Outreach coordinator will reach out to the UT Southwestern community and coordinate our visits to the classroom. The Outreach coordinator will also collect short about me video from scientist at UTSW to be shared with the students at Uplift Williams in advance of our visit.
Come lead small groups of students through the science curriculum in the classroom!
- 2022/2023 Outreach coordinator: Carla Madrid.
- 2022/2023 Scientists in the Classroom: Christopher Cervantes, Nina Baggett, Yoheilly Velazquez Gonzalez, Amanda Dobbins, Nestor Ruiz, Jordan Wall, Mandy Eckhardt, Julisa Gonzalez, Kristen Dominique Amarillo, Kaitlin Stromberg, Dominique Lagasca, Andrea Pineda Sanchez, Andrea Boitnott, Erick Guerrero, Irvin Garza, David Sanchez, Jamie Guerrero, Carla Madrid, Gianna Maggiore.
Interested in participating? Fill out this quick survey to let us know: https://forms.gle/AFtTAfVoE81M1wwd8
2021/2022 program | 2022/2023 program | 2023/2024 program
Questions?: E-mail Kendra Frederick at kendra.frederick@utsouthwestern.edu
Frederick Lab 