STEM Education and Public Outreach Community at OU
What's this about?
The Voinovich School for Leadership and Public Affairs,
and
the South East Ohio Center for Excellence in Mathematics
and Science
are hoping to create a community of OU STEM faculty and
researchers interested in science education
and public outreach
("science EPO").
Mangala Sharma
and Barry Oches are leading this effort.
"STEM"? That's science, technology, engineering
and mathematics (and sometimes, medicine).
Funding agencies like this acronym.
By "education", we mean both formal and informal learning.
Why a STEM faculty EPO community here?
Among other reasons:
- To build interdisciplinary partnerships among STEM
faculty and researchers (at various OU campuses) through
science EPO;
- To share best practices and lessons learned; explore workable,
innovative ideas in sharing the wonders of science and
scientific research with our communities;
- To build infrastructure and capacity among
our STEM faculty to enhance public understanding of science
and scientific research, and excite more students to take up
STEM studies and careers;
- To transform how science EPO is done at OU - from
dedicated individuals working alone or in small teams
to a community of science and education professionals
to make a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts;
- To position ourselves to compete more effectively for state,
federal, and private/foundation grants that support STEM
education, informal education and outreach;
- Etc.
- And all of these nicely support the Vision Ohio Environment
Goal too.
Where do we start?
-
Online survey - request input from our STEM colleagues.
Why this survey? To learn about STEM faculty/researcher
involvement in science EPO, to gauge their interest in working
with colleagues (including from other STEM departments
and across campuses) to further public understanding of science
and scientific research.
Update: Over 60 faculty from about 20
departments responded,
with an overwhelming majority citing strong commitment to EPO.
Nearly three-quarters of those responding said they would like
to share their scientific research with the public and high
school students; other target audiences included students in
elementary and middle schools, K-12 teachers, and policy
makers. These faculty were also enthusiastic about exploring
collaboration with other OU researchers to enhance science
awareness and education in our region.
- An afternoon reception Tuesday, June 5 - 3:30-5:00PM
at the Voinovich Center, Building 21 on the Ridges
for our STEM faculty/researcher colleagues, to share thoughts and
ideas, and consider building a network of people interested
in science EPO.
Update: Nearly 30 faculty who
responded to the survey as well as
representatives from the OU Outreach Office and ORSP attended
this reception, sponsored by the Voinovich School.
We brainstormed about how to build working relationships among
faculty in different STEM departments/disciplines on campus,
and how we could work to achieve our EPO goals.
Our plans for the near future include
- creating ways to improve contact and to share information
among those interested in collaborating on STEM EPO, and
- scheduling further meetings to continue this conversation.
We are also interested in doing a "needs assessment" about
science education (both formal and informal) in our region.
- Your ideas here ...
URL for this page: www.phy.ohiou.edu/~sharma/stem.html
More information:
