Collaborative Research: BIORETS: Authentic research experiences for teachers at Long-Term Ecological Research sites: climate change and biodiversity across ecosystems

The Authentic Research Experience for Teachers at NSF’s Long Term Ecological Research sites (ARET@LTER) project engages high-school teachers in conducting field and laboratory research focused on the impact of emerging environmental stressors such as floods, droughts, and heat waves, on local biodiversity across diverse ecosystems. Pairs of teachers will be recruited from schools with large populations of students from marginalized groups in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and stationed at each of three LTER research locations.

Over an 18-month period, pairs of selected teachers will work with faculty and graduate students to conduct research and compare their experiences with colleagues stationed at other LTER sites through virtual meetings and chats. This cohort approach will allow teachers to support and learn from one another. The three included LTER sites span diverse critical habitat types on Earth including the Arctic (Arctic LTER), temperate montane forests (Andrews LTER), and marine coastal ecosystems (Santa Barbara Coastal LTER).

A capstone in-person experience at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis will further expose teachers to the practice, process, and community of today's networked and data-intensive science. Teachers will engage their students in authentic science learning activities based on their RET experience and develop a Data Nugget or similar data product based on their authentic research experience which can be used by any of the RETs in the project as well as across K-12 and undergraduate classrooms through the freely available Data Nuggets website.

The goals of the project are to train teachers in the techniques involved in global change ecology, how scientists study and describe the impacts of climate change on biodiversity, and to explore ways for teachers to share this experience and these data with their students. The project is a collaboration between scientists and teachers, with both science and education enriched in the exchange of ideas and practice.

The project has the potential for broad reach and impact on teacher practice and student engagement and learning and reaches multiple communities across the U.S. that serve students traditionally underrepresented in STEM. The project’s broader impacts fall into five categories: change in teacher practice; engagement and achievement of students historically excluded in STEM; improved understanding of classroom context for scientists; development of long-term partnerships between teachers and scientists; and development and dissemination of data products at local, regional, and national levels.

This project is funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure.

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.