Enhancing Introductory Biology with the Arizona Insect DNA Barcoding Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience

Pima County Community College District- Northwest Campus, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program, this Track 2 project aims to improve undergraduate biology education. It will do so by implementing a place-based Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) in introductory biology at a community college, and studying the CURE's impact on students. The CURE will be developed through a collaboration between Pima Community College and the University of Arizona, both located in Tucson, Arizona. Students participating in the CURE will generate, analyze, and publish data that will be new to science. The opportunity to contribute to scientific knowledge is expected to increase students' positive feelings toward science, which may in turn increase their persistence and graduation in STEM fields. This project will provide new evidence about the value of CUREs by determining whether community college students participating in a CURE are more likely to continue studying science and to graduate with a STEM degree. A significant percentage of college students who take their first biology course at a community college are from underrepresented groups. Thus, the project has the potential to broaden participation in STEM education and the STEM workforce. Students in introductory biology courses at Pima Community College will participate in the Arizona Insect DNA Barcoding CURE. Students will obtain, analyze, and publish DNA sequences from insects curated in the University of Arizona Insect Collection. Through this work, students will contribute to research at the University of Arizona and to the scientific community at large. Research has shown that increases in students' project ownership, self-efficacy, science identity, and tolerance to obstacles are associated with increases in their persistence and graduation in STEM fields. It is expected that students who participate in the CURE will demonstrate greater increases in these characteristics than those who do not participate. The project will also examine whether multiple experiences in the same CURE are associated with greater increases than a single experience. This project aims to broaden research on STEM student success by examining the relationship between CURE participation and the successful transfer of community college students to four-year institutions and their subsequent graduation in STEM. Thus, the project may provide a collaborative model for how two-year and four-year institutions can partner to improve transfer success and increase STEM graduation rates. It is also expected to serve as a model for actively engaging undergraduate biology students with natural history museum collections in ways that benefit both student performance and the collections. Results from this project will be presented at national science education conferences and submitted for publication in peer-reviewed STEM and STEM education journals. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims. 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.