Environmental AIMS (Applied Investigations in Mathematics & Statistics)

Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond KY

Investigators

Abstract

The Environmental-AIMS program takes advantage of the natural curiosity that young people have about environmental phenomena in the Appalachian region to increase their performance and success in an introductory statistics course and to improve their attitudes towards mathematics and statistics in general. The program uses a collaborative team of an environmental scientist that has studied water quality issues in the Appalachian region and a statistician who is from the Appalachian region to deliver inquiry based laboratories employing local and regional water quality and biological data from the Appalachian Kentucky region collected by the Environmental Research Institute. The project is developing an inquiry-based team-taught Environmental -AIMS laboratory for an introductory statistics course and is establishing a professional community of multidisciplinary faculty to inform the curriculum development process and facilitate dissemination cross campus and to other institutions. The project is exploring whether the team-taught environment-centered, inquiry-based statistics laboratory curriculum is an effective approach by assessing improvement in student performance on core content and general education learning objectives and improvement in student attitudes towards statistics and mathematics. The approach is transformational because the interdisciplinary collaboration is not aimed at a specific group of majors, but rather at demonstrating the broad applicability of statistical reasoning. The program encourages young people from historically socioeconomically distressed region of Appalachia to consider and pursue careers in STEM disciplines and benefits society by raising their quantitative and scientific literacy and by encouraging them to return to their home communities as agents of change.