EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH NASA STEM CONTENT ALLOWS GREATER GRASS ROOT-LEVEL UNDERSTANDING OF THE PRESENT DAY’S EXTREME CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIO

The NASA MAA (MUREP Aerospace Academy) project at York College has demonstrated a track record of providing experiential learning opportunities (ELO) to its participating students. ELOs associated with MAA are designed to increase learners’ involvement, knowledge, comprehension and application of learning in one or more STEM subjects/disciplines. They involve inquiry-and-activity-based learning approaches designed for the level of the learner to inspire, engage, and educate while progressively challenging each student. ELO activities enable learners to acquire knowledge, understand what they have learned, and apply that knowledge through inquiry-based tasks. Specifically, we are prepared to address the following priority: Encourage, increase, and sustain youth and public engagement in STEM—Expand the number of U.S. youth (especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups) who have an effective, authentic STEM experience each year prior to completing high school. Being in southeast Queens, York’s program is essentially playing a pivotal role to disseminate STEM resources to minority persons eagerly seeking content knowledge to further their education. Through MUREP, we are committed to advance understanding of the earth and develop technologies to improve the quality of life on our home planet. The introduction of a curriculum enhancement activity (CEA) to the K9-16 students is becoming a new initiative of our MAA project, as well as the formal addition of climate change curricula to the MAA 7-9th grades, and supplying the oversight and resources to accomplish that goal. Numerous studies have shown that providing climate change curriculum to the middle to high school students can allow greater grass root-level understanding of the changing phenomena and scientific constraints associated with such dramatic changes we are now facing. NASA’s Science Directorate in conjunction with MAA will enable us to train MAA students and pre-service teachers in this endeavor and bring greater prominence of the MAA STEM contents to the participating students and disseminate real-time data for a realistic overview of the climate change scenario. NASA MAA STEM Outreach Grant Funded This Projec

AN ANALYSIS OF ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY: HOW ACCURATE IS THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF SPACE?

The current research goal is to talk about astrophotography that is designed to interact with non-STEM majors in the natural sciences, and to teach future or beginner astronomers and citizen scientists. The course depends on constructivist tutorial strategies to instruct records, cut price and photo processing strategies, and at the same time address mathematical anxiety. The goal of the pathways is to create an awesome ride in the natural sciences, which has been traditionally linked to imparting pertinent education to a cohort of citizen scientists and novice astronomers - businesses which historically have analyzed an amazing volume of files (both recent and historical archives) and have accomplished countless discoveries. Those enrolled in the route demonstrated a greater grasp of records reduction, photography processing, telescope and digicam use. Most college students had been keen to take up astrophotography as a hobby. Thus, opening the course may lead to creating future citizen scientists and novice astronomers. We found that the strategies required to exercise astrophotography are to create an herbal constructivist involved in instructing our environment. The route can be reproduced somewhere else to train non-science college students with methods in records discount and photo processing, deemed an effective experience to enable them to access STEM fields and appreciate the interconnectedness with astrophotography. It can be considered as a recruiting tool in STEM disciplines

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITY (ELO) AND UTILIZATION OF FIELD-AND-DATA- BASED INFORMATION OBTAINED THROUGH THE INFUSION OF TECHNOLOGY: HIGHLIGHTS ON NASA STEM AND EARTH SCIENCE CURRICULA

There is a greater emphasis on hands-on involvement and critical thinking skills in the geosciences and other STEM fields to inspire and engage K- 16 students to value scientific content and enable them to discover the well-documented nature of the fundamental scientific principles needed to explain various earth science and other STEM-related core phenomena. NASA MAA curricula are ideal for engaging K1-16 students in this context, since grade-specific lesson plans open-up a plethora of pedagogically sound and relevant earth science activities. These include earth’s materials and properties, meteorites, robotics, hot air balloon, flight simulation, star gazing, material science, crystal growth, density measurement of various objects, aerodynamics, liquid nitrogen and other cryogenic activities, weather tracking, measuring air turbulence, etc. Real-time, hands-on activities built upon fundamental physics, chemistry and mathematical principles; create an opportunity for the participating students to appreciate the relevance and importance of STEM activities across the curriculum. Furthermore, these enable students to acquire strategic and pivotal knowledge towards fulfilling one of the core underlining pedagogical components labeled as critical thinking skills. One of the advantages of disseminating basic science concepts to the students is its powerful constraint on having group dynamics, time management, and understanding research methodology applicable to these activities. Data collected on over 1000 students positively shows students’ liking and subsequent success in STEM education at an early age. In general, responses to items expressing positive experiences with science received high levels of agreement. Similarly, students gave high levels of agreement to items about the importance of science: 92% agreed that they are learning interesting things about science; 88% agreed that science is important for society and 88% agreed that science improves our live. Hands-on, field-based, critical thinking, and ELO-related tasks are found to be a strong determinant in the evaluation matrix. Furthermore, respondents demonstrated enthusiasm for learning and indicated and that they are engaged in science in ways that supplement and enrich their schoolwork

EFFECTIVE INTEGRATION OF NASA STEM CURRICULA IS ALLOWING STUDENTS TO APPRECIATE EARTH SCIENCE CONCEPTS

NASA Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) Aerospace Academy - MAA is a national, innovative activity designed to increase participation and retention of historically underserved and underrepresented K-12 youth in the STEM disciplines, particularly earth science and human exploration (HEO). HEO is dedicated to informing and educating the public about NASA\u27s plans for a new era in space exploration. Utilization of NASA satellite images, online climate education, space mathematics and other earth science-related resources is allowing students to conduct basic research and prepare themselves for a New York City-wide science competition. In addition to offering school children a solid grounding in STEM and increasing the involvement of parents in their children’s education, MAA at York fulfills many other important community needs. The majority of our MAA parents are immigrants and ESL people who greatly benefit from the program in terms of obtaining critical STEM education opportunities for their kids. The MAA Family Café allows them to locate, source, easily navigate and retrieve pertinent information and opportunities such as specialized high school admission, SAT, math and science tutoring, College Now Program, and most importantly online NASA educational resources for enhancing their understanding of STEM both for themselves and their kids. Family Café is certainly a venue where parents are also becoming STEM conscientious citizens and they often acknowledge the magical impact MAA did on their kids. Noticeable impacts demonstrated by many MAA students include higher performance in math and science tests, positive interest, renewed motivation, and curiosity. Pre-service teachers from the college also work for the program, thus in part fulfilling their fieldwork requirements and becoming better trained science teachers. Pre-service teachers are strongly encouraged to attend MAA classes, participate in STEM activities, and often guide students in the completion of tasks. With this close collaboration, pre-service teachers acquire an essential pedagogical component on formulating their own STEM activities and constructing a good lesson plan to achieve maximum effectiveness. NASA MAA STEM Outreach Grant Funded This Projec

Mars 2020: A Step Closer to the Red Planet

This research paper primarily focuses on the NASA Mars 2020 mission, but will also revisit and discuss past rover missions. As the Mars 2020 mission is ongoing, some information will be updated accordingly. For decades, humans have dreamed of the colonization of Mars for many reasons, such as some similarities shared by Earth and Mars or the close proximity to our planet. In fact, dozens of films, books, and articles have been written, especially in the past 2 decades, about the possibility. As technology advances, we develop newer equipment to hopefully make this possibility into a reality. Of course, placing a moving robotic vehicle on a satellite for research purposes is nothing new and we have done so in the past. However, it is clear that we have come a long way from the first rover we’ve placed on Mars, the Sojourner in 1997. As for the 2020 mission, the main components would include the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity Mars helicopter. The main objective of the Perseverance is to examine any possible traces of life or the possibility of life - with traces of past microbial life. It would also collect various samples that may prove helpful for future research if brought back to Earth. Compared to the Curiosity rover and its mission, there are many shared similarities, and the Perseverance (and its mission) could be said to be a “continuation” or “extension” of the Curiosity mission. For the Ingenuity, the task is relatively simple - to test the possibility of flight on another planet. Earth’s gravitational pull differs from Mars’, along with many other atmospheric differences, so if the flight of the Ingenuity proves to be successful, it could pave the way for future “travels” on Mars

NASA MAA (MUREP AEROSPACE ACADEMY) STEM PROJECT AT YORK COLLEGE: ENSURING FUTURE STEM PIPELINE

Our ongoing K1-12 NASA-supported STEM activities has served over 5000 children since 2015, largely from groups that are undeserved and underrepresented in the sciences. These STEM activities have been successfully delivered for several years and include earth science, meteorite geology, rocketry, aerodynamics, star gazing, EV3 Mindstorm robotics, basic coding exercises, wind tunnel, 3D-printing, etc., conducted largely through our present MAA (MUREP Aerospace Academy) Project. Corporate funding from the Con Edison and National Grid ensures additional STEM dissemination to the students during the summer operation. Significant positive component of the MAA program is the availability and willingness of the former student participants (many of whom are completing STEM majors in college) to extend their helping hands to assist teachers and guide students to fulfill assigned tasks and share their rich experience to reinforce the value of STEM learning. In a way, they validate students’ participation and promote meaningful dialog with their parents, mostly first generation Americans, often with English as a second language, and lacking knowledge of the importance of the STEM disciplines and careers built around it. Recent involvement of the City University of New York’s (CUNY) Explorer’s Program, a vigorous initiative undertaken by the CUNY to bring thousands of middle school students to the various CUNY campuses, including York College, opened a formidable partnership building opportunity for the MAA to tap into the future pipeline by engaging visiting students with our STEM facilities and educating these young and curious minds about the future STEM potential both in selecting exciting academic and career options. STEM outreach delivered through hands-on, team work, in an experiential and critical thinking environment is becoming a catalyst for motivating numerous students towards earth science and relevant NASA content. This way, MAA Program is creating a STEM conscious young student body and providing a strategic recruitment tool for various undergraduate STEM disciplines. Early involvement of middle school students in STEM activities can be deemed as a powerful and viable mechanism to overcome an apparent shortage of STEM workforce representing minorities, women and financially disadvantaged groups

LEVERAGING THE POPULARITY OF VIRTUAL CONFERENCING DUE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC TO CREATE NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR STEM EDUCATION

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual learning has become a necessity for K9-16 education. Virtual classwork has been administered through platforms such as Google Classroom, Clever, and iReady. During the summer of 2021, the City University of New York (C.U.N.Y) York College campus hosted its NASA MAA MUREP (Minority University Research and Education Project Aerospace Academy) program virtually using a combination of Zoom, Google Docs, and even Canva, which some students requested as a more intuitive alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint. Students were mentored to use the scientific method to explore their interests in the STEM field, with a geoscience or environmental science focus where possible. Students were trained to 1) obtain peer reviewed articles from reputable sources such as Nature Geoscience, GSA Today, as well as databases such as Springer and Google Scholar, 2) locate reputable raw datasets from sources such as the EPA, NASA, NOAA, NIH, AMS, USGS, census.gov and many others, 3) analyze and discuss such data with a hypothesis in mind and represent the data in graphical form using Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, and 4) ultimately form a conclusion based on the hypothesis. Since many government bodies and reputable scientific teams worldwide conduct extensive sampling and data collection (while making this data publicly available), this virtual education approach allows the exploration of STEM topics without necessitating field or laboratory sampling. Availability of open access information pertaining to benchmark publications through the internet, it has opened a plethora of opportunities for more scientific research. The innovative combination of virtual learning tools along with email communications, allowed students to meet for 2 hours sessions multiple times a week and receive individualized attention and mentorship to generate final E-posters to present their work. Topics included: the effects of air pollution on respiratory health, acid rain in the northeastern United States, and pollution along the Yangtze River (China). The virtual platforms also enabled students to share their work-in-progress for feedback from peers, as well as allowed the students to use other forms of communication such as chat instead of only voice-communication or only face-to-face interaction. This flexibility gave an additional level of confidence to the participating students

MULTI-FACETED GEOSCIENCE RESEARCH USING OPEN ACCESS RESOURCES: THE SUCCESSFUL PARTICIPATION OF K9-16 STUDENTS

Students interested in geosciences, for the most part, missed out their traditional field- based research activities due to strict social distancing, travel restrictions and/or lacking financial support. An absence of physical laboratory opportunities forced students to choose topics deemed doable through online research. Available data from online sources on extreme weather related case studies, flooding, droughts, groundwater depletion in urban and suburban areas, coastal erosion rate, sealevel rise, landslides, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and atmospheric pollution became quite handy and lucrative. Readily available pertinent data sources enabled K9-16 students to conduct summer research at “stay home” situations. Selective peer mentoring was also available remotely to representative students, mostly led by geology faculty. It certainly facilitated both individual and group-based learning of geoscience- related research. Group projects were very effective in promoting team dynamics by encouraging participating students to engage in discussions during breakout sessions. This aspect is very significant for students, considering geoscience-related research often requires close collaboration between multiple individuals. The retrieval of online data mostly became available to students from regularly posted information by the NASA Earth Observatory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, American Meteorological Society, European Space Agency, United States Geological Survey, and Environmental Protection Agency. Filtering of critical data and establishing their relevance to a chosen topic often required patience and proper time management. Once the data were selected, students needed to run basic statistical investigations and come up with graphical representations, document trends, and signify their bearing on the overarching research question. The outcome is that COVID 19 opened up a new dimension and pedagogical approach to engage K9-16 students in geoscience-related research. Engaged students became proficient in data collection techniques, acquired scientific communication skills, and learnt about time management. Overall, the K9-16 students involved became self- motivated and were highly successful in reaching their research goals

ADDRESSING THE LEARNING LOSS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC THROUGH THE ADAPTATION OF VIRTUAL PLATFORMS

The York College-hosted NASA MAA (MUREP AEROSPACE ACADEMY) has always played a pivotal role in minimizing the learning loss during the summer months, which was heightened during the pandemic. Support from AT&T, Con Edison and NASA enabled the MAA program at York College to offer a virtual STEM education with an earth science concentration to 1000 plus underserved K1-12 students from the community last summer, including 160 high school students. Two factors made this endeavor fruitful: allowing additional time to engage in STEM lessons and increasing self-motivation to successfully accomplish assigned tasks. Students built partnerships and resolved technical issues with the smaller class size. MAA students normally receive more than three hours of uninterrupted STEM lessons, as opposed to less than 90 minutes of instruction time in math and science classes in their respective public schools. Based on the successful outcome from the 2020 operation, York’s NASA MAA will be continuing its peer mentoring initiative, with the goal to increase the scope and allow additional students to receive both academic and research training during summer 2021, fall 2021 and spring 2022. Applied mathematics including analytical geometry, trigonometry, number theories, and algebra, as well as science and python-based programming lessons will be offered to students. The other notable pedagogical focus will be to provide meaningful connections with scientific vocabulary and how to communicate effectively. Group or individual presentations will be used in classroom activities. Modified and newly structured math and science curricula will enable participating students to fully engage in an interactive learning environment through discussion, breakout sessions, and homework. Individual math and science lessons are built on the best practices tailored down to the students\u27 reach and are aimed at fostering teamwork and group learning. Consequently, it is very important for the MAA summer program to continue to offer evidenced-based STEM education to minority students and allow them to become knowledgeable, well informed, and ready to apply for internships and attend college

POSITIVE OUTCOMES OF INVOLVING UNDERGRADUATE AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN BROADER ASPECT OF EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE THROUGH PEER MENTORING AND RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

The importance of involving undergraduates and high school students in field-and-laboratory research investigations at an early stage through peer mentoring has been clearly demonstrated as a critical tool for essential training to fully comprehend academic content and a deeper understanding of the various STEM, geoscience-and- environmental science related topics. As far as we are concerned, student presenters/participants (over 1000) in our topical sessions since 2004 have always found face-to-face presentation through poster sessions to be an ideal scientific venue where exchange of knowledge and discussion are fruitful, constructive and encouraging. It is quite revealing to note that among the student participants, 60% were female and they also dominated both undergraduate and high school populations! Student- led presentations at the GSA annual meeting (s) opened a plethora of academic gains, including appreciating the relevance of the topics presented, networking opportunities, preparation for graduate studies, and increasing self-esteem. Several student presenters, who have now completed their college education and are currently employed, have responded to us and said that their current employment experience is enhanced by the fact that our topical sessions primarily focused on the acquisition of experiential learning skills and provided them with career-oriented knowledge. It clearly supported our belief that research experience is vital to a well-rounded education and readiness for professional employment. We find this to be very useful in attracting urban students, particularly low-income and academically challenged students to pursue the geosciences since traditional classroom teaching alone cannot effectively create a sound pedagogical environment suitable to promote geoscience as a college option or as a career choice. It is becoming a routine practice in many City University of New York (CUNY) institutions, particularly York College, Virginia Commonwealth University, and city high schools to involve underrepresented students at an early stage and bring research opportunities to them through STEM research initiatives supported by MUREP Aerospace Academy - National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), State Education Department, AT&T, Con Edison, National Grid, and National Science Foundation (NSF). Such collaboration ensures that the STEM/geosciences pipeline is constantly enriched in order to meet the future needs and challenges faced by society