Graduate Research Fellows 2016

The desert sky we see here in Tucson, Arizona, is the same desert sky that Arabs have observed for millennia. Two Deserts, One Sky is intended to bring the richness and depth of astronomy in ancient Arab cultures to modern awareness. This project for the first time presents ancient Arab astronomical traditions within their own cultural contexts, instead of fragmented within the confines of Greek-oriented modern astronomy. From explaining the meaning and usage of star names in ancient star calendars to examining their continuing impact on modern-day astronomy around the globe, this project is designed to build bridges of understanding and foster greater appreciation for the vast heritage of Arab astronomy. The Star Calendar Blog of Two Deserts, One Sky (http://onesky.arizona.edu) launches on October 1, 2015, with public star talks following throughout the academic year.

As a 2nd year physics graduate student with a strong background in education, I know first-hand that teaching science is difficult.  The motivation for my outreach project is to make teaching science less daunting for elementary school teachers.  My project consists of creating lesson plans for the Children's Museum Tucson that go along with their outreach programs.  Their Adventures to Go program visits schools and libraries to teach a lesson from a wide range of topics from space exploration to art.  For each one of their outreach programs, I am designing a set of science lesson plans that adhere to the Arizona state academic standards.  These lessons use easily obtainable materials, so any teacher or librarian can use them.  Additionally, they will include detailed instructions for every activity and demonstration, as well as an FAQ sheet formed specifically for the teacher to gain a stronger foundation for the material within the lesson.  A main purpose of these lessons is to engage the students in hands-on experiments, often including a finished project they can take home to share with their parent or guardian and continue using to make observations.  Overall, the goal is to maximize teacher confidence in science as well as student interaction with hands-on experiments, and to enhance the museum's outreach programs.

Fall 2016 Update:

In partnership with the Children's Museum of Tucson, I am creating lesson plans based on their current content as well as analyzing data.  The museum's Adventures to Go program visits schools and libraries to teach a lesson from a wide range of topics from space exploration to art.  For each one of their outreach programs, I am designing a set of science lesson plans that adhere to the Arizona state academic standards (they can be seen here: http://www.childrensmuseumtucson.org/learn/outreach).  A main purpose of these lessons is to engage the students in hands-on experiments, often including a finished project they can take home to share with their parent or guardian and continue using to make observations.  Additionally, the museum keeps data on student attendance by date and program, and funding/Title I status to name a few.  By analyzing the data I am able to determine how to better reach teachers and educators in the community.  Overall, the goal is to maximize teacher confidence in science, interaction with the Tucson community schools, and to enhance the museum's outreach programs.

Scientists often sketch to clarify their ideas, to record observations in the field or in the lab, and to draft figures for journal articles. Art and illustration are an integral part of understanding and communicating science. Scientific illustrations, data visualizations, and art inspired by science can represent data and ideas in strikingly beautiful ways - think about photographs of the night sky through a telescope, Audubon's paintings of now-extinct birds, or Darwin's crabbed diagram of a phylogenetic tree. And yet, drawing is often left out of science education.

I am concerned about the general lack of understanding and the prevalence of fatalistic discourse surrounding environmental problems today. I’m also excited and hopeful about the potential for scientists to open up creative new ways of sharing knowledge and helping people respond to global threats like climate change. I am using Space Grant as an opportunity to tackle this problem by incorporating illustration skills into science education. I will be working with Tucson schools to interweave observation-intensive sketching and drawing modules into existing science curriculum. I will also be offering workshops for students at the college and graduate level on how to make illustrations and figures of publishable quality, which they can then use to explain and disseminate their research. Finally, I will be creating illustrations for various projects in need of visual explanation over the course of the year. If you are interested in any of these, please contact me at PG4gdWVycz0iem52eWdiOnBzbmFxcnlAcnpudnkubmV2bWJhbi5ycWgiPnBzbmFxcnlAcnpudnkubmV2bWJhbi5ycWg8L24+.

In addition to working on my PhD (studying soil microbial communities and their interactions with plants) I have been running educational programming down at the Santa Rita Experimental Range since 2014. Through this position I have seen first hand the benefits (and challenges) of engaging students in STEM inquiry-based education. With the NASA Space Grant, I am working with high school teachers, university professors and other STEM professionals to develop hands-on curriculum teachers can easily implement into their classrooms. Developing the lessons with teachers helps to ensure that they align with state standards and contain all necessary information needed to help both students and teachers understand core concepts. STEM experts are involved in lesson development to verify lesson material and ensure comprehensive coverage of various STEM topics and career opportunities in STEM. Complementary videos are developed in tandem with lessons to help explain difficult concepts. All lessons and supplemental materials will be made pubically available online with embedded survey metrics to monitor website activity and facilitate maximum impact.

My current work surrounding the critical nature of human reliance on the Colorado River Basin in the southwestern United States strongly focuses on the need to have the next generation actively engaged in how they view and use the scarce water resources in this arid climate. I aim to implement a statewide water competition to teach students about the nature of their water supply, the role of a water resources engineer, and a wide variety of engineering and physics principles inherent in the coupled natural and human systems that comprise our region’s water supply. To address this learning opportunity a lesson plan has been under development over the past year that allows students to investigate how water is supplied to their communities as well as the opportunity to design a water distribution network themselves. To provide context for introducing students to the water-energy nexus the first portion of the module will consist of having the students take a closer look at the quantity of water they use in their homes as well as how they use it beginning with the simple question: “Where does your tap water come from?”

After the students have been introduced to water resources they will design a simple water distribution network using a model originally developed at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. The model, Aqualibrium, is what we hope will become an international competition appropriate for students in middle school and up to the college level. A favorite among attendees, this competition is conducted at professional water conferences around the world. The winning team is the one that can design the most equitable and efficient water supply network. The competition consists of a reservoir, three buckets that represent demand points, several pipe connectors, and two available pipe sizes. The goal of the activity is to equally distribute 3 liters of water from the reservoir to each of the demand centers. Penalty points are assigned for each mml of water above or below the desired 1 liter amount in each bucket. This competition will be conducted at each of the selected schools and the winning team will be invited to participate in a formal competition hosted at the University of Arizona.

Past teaching experience has shown that students who have completed this water module gain a deeper appreciation for all the different professions that contribute to the simple act of turning on a faucet. In order to address the critical nature of the nation’s growing water crisis, an informed youth is crucial to ensure the security of our water supply in an increasingly uncertain future. This activity presents the opportunity to incorporate many learning objectives pertain to the study of physics and engineering including conservation of mass and energy, sensitivity analysis, an understanding of systems, and the design of test procedures. Beyond the immediate learning objectives embedded within the project the most significant impact of this proposal will be the fact that the students and teachers will possess a stronger understanding of their local water systems. Previous experience has shown that this understanding carries over into the students’ homes and daily habits and will have a lasting impact on how the students interact with local ecosystems.

For this competition to continue beyond the time allotted for this fellowship, involvement by the teachers is crucial. As a result, the formalization of the learning becomes a resource that can be utilized over and over as it is integrated into the curriculum.

I am a 3^rd year Ph.D. student in the Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science; I am currently working to understand how soils form over time in Southeastern Arizona as part of the Catalina-Jemez Critical Zone Observatory (CJCZO, criticalzone.org/catalina-jemez/). Along with my current research, I am currently developing a video series about the researchers working on the CJCZO with the Flandrau Science Center (flandrau.org). The Critical Zone is the thin outermost layer of the Earth’s crust, from the top of the tree canopy down to groundwater; this layer of the planet is where the majority of life exists. The concept of the Critical Zone is integral to the earth and life sciences, but this important layer of the planet remains largely unknown to the general public. With this video project I hope to increase the awareness and understanding of the Critical Zone, and the science currently being done to understand this layer of the planet.

The videos will feature short profiles of the researchers and their projects currently working on the CJCZO; by putting a face to the science, we hope to better communicate the research being done by the scientists on the CJCZO and why we need to better understand the Critical Zone. By communicating the science through the personal narratives of the scientists working on the project, we hope to make the science easily accessible and understandable, and that everyone can be a part of the scientific process. In addition, the videos will highlight selected science projects and scientific tools and concepts that the researchers of the CZO use to study the Critical Zone. This video series will be available to the public through sites such as YouTube and at the Critical Zone Exhibit at the Flandrau Science Center.