The Great Diseases: Connecting Science Practice to STEM Career Awareness Stephanie Tammen & Berri Jacque

The STEM gap problem 9 out of 10 bioscience jobs are in health! 16% 21% Bioscience/health

Scientific and health literacy needs are shifting Scientific Skills/ Literacy Scientific & Health Literacy Mid Skill Level Jobs Workforce preparation High Skill Level Jobs Workforce Preparation

Bringing scientists and teachers together to solve this problem Biomedical Scientists Novel content knowledge, evidence-based reasoning, authentic scientific practice “know-how” Workforce PreparationHealth Literacy Increased Student Engagement & Performance Teachers Pedagogical content knowledge, assessments, direct relationship with students Life-relevant curricula

CTSE projects The Great Diseases: Designing engaging, rigorous, real- world, health-focused life science curricula for 10 th – 12 th grade students Modeling for Fidelity: Providing extensive support for teachers BioScann: Bridging the STEM Gap

Infectious Disease: Curriculum development and dissemination July 2009July 2012July 2010July 2011July 2013July 2014July 2015 Metabolic Disease: Neurological Disorders: Cancer: Dissemination 45,601 people from 42 US states and 41 different countries have accessed the curriculum Students: Students: Students: Students:

CTSE projects The Great Diseases: Designing engaging, rigorous, real- world, health-focused life science curricula for 10 th – 12 th grade students Modeling for Fidelity: Providing extensive support for teachers BioScann: Bridging the STEM Gap

Bridging the bioscience STEM gap: challenges Providing cross-disciplinary analytical and problem-solving skills using 21 st century bioscience content. Using teamwork and critical thinking in the context of bioscience learning. Supporting students in formulating questions, designing experiments, and interpreting data.

Problem Based Learning (PBL) providing cross- disciplinary analytical and problem solving skills Create teams and assign roles of actual bioscience careers. Each team then participates in a drug design project that spans: Pick a Disease Select a Drug Compound for Cholera Test Efficacy & Toxicity Phase 1 Clinical Trial Phase 2 & 3 Clinical Trials Animal BiologistRegulatory Specialist Research Scientist Clinical Trial Nurse Toxicologist Clinical Research Associate

Supporting students in designing experiments and interpreting data: QMDC Experimental DesignCommunication Question What question do you want to address? What question does the experiment address? Method What method(s) can you use?What method(s) are used? Data Predict what your data will look like. Describe the data. Conclusion What conclusions can you draw from your predictions? What conclusions can you draw from the data?

Using teamwork and critical thinking

Student responses to the question: What did you like best about the BioScann Activities? “I liked that we acted as certain positions and careers; this was a good way to learn about different health science careers that I might want to pursue in the future. I also liked that we completely designed each experiment; I think it was as close to the real experience of working in a pharmaceutical company as it could have been.” “I think it was a great way to learn about what goes on in a pharmaceutical company and having different pieces of information also gave us more opportunities to work together and communicate.” “I thought QMDC was a good way to assess what was going on in each figure and what the data meant for the project. Often in science experiments things can get confusing so it was a good way to really break down information.”

These students did not change their thoughts about science or careers Is taking science or health courses an important part of your education? Would you like to eventually find work in a science or health-related job? Is taking science or health courses an important part of your education? Would you like to eventually find work in a science or health-related job? Likert Scale (6 Points Total) After Before How can we make career awareness more accessible?

Bringing career awareness to classrooms BioScann – bioscann.org bioscann.org

Questions and thoughts? bioscann.org Acknowledgments