Catalyst Project: Creating and Evaluating a Culturally Representative STEM Curriculum Supported by Next Generation Science Standards

Howard University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Catalyst Projects provide support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities to work towards establishing research capacity of faculty to strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics undergraduate education and research. It is expected that the award will further the faculty member's research capability, improve research and teaching at the institution. and involve undergraduate students in research experiences. This project at Howard University will study how the lived experiences, heritage, and accomplishments of people of Black African heritage can be used to create a culturally representative STEM curriculum, and subsequently develop and implement a culturally representative STEM curriculum supported in the Next Generation Science Standards. Undergraduate students participate in this project as researchers. This research will use the cultural resources of the Gullah people of South Carolina, along with best practices in science education pedagogy, to create science lesson units that are culturally representative of African Americans. The cultural resources of Black students who attend a Historically Black College and University will also inform the interest and direction of the science unit modules created, even as students learn about science in the Gullah regions. The science units will be implemented in various workshops with pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and science educators. Participants will engage in inquiry, discussion, and hands-on activities supported by the three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards. The research will use the best practices of qualitative research methods, qualitative data collection and analysis, and schema theory as an applied cognitive theory, along with pre- and post- questionnaires, adapted to explore the following research questions: How do participants' attitudes and views of the nature of science change? More, specifically, how do participants' feelings, attitudes, and views about the social, racial, and cultural embeddedness and nature of science change? How do participants' understandings about the involvement and participation of African Americans in science change? How do participants' pedagogical and science content knowledge change? How do participants use their cognitive resources to understand and engage in science that is culturally embedded in the lived experiences of the African American Gullah people? This research has implications for embedding the cultural underpinnings of African Americans into Western science in the K-12 classroom. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.