Below you will find examples of previous research that the STEM center has conducted. For more information, please contact the STEM Center at stemcenter@siue.edu.
In this NSF-funded project, we developed and tested a model for urban place-based learning with the goal of motivating and helping to prepare minority middle-grade students to pursue STEM education and career pathways.
The aim of this research was to investigate who participates in EarthCaching activities, why they participate, and what they think they learn from participating. They found that the strongest motivator for EarthCaching was to learn more about the Earth. This was followed by motivations to learn more about geologic topics and a desire to be outdoors.
Environmental Health Investigators (EHI)
EHI helps prepare underserved youth in communities of southwest Illinois to pursue STEM careers and education that focus on health sciences. The program is designed for students to participate in authentic science that allows them to more fully engage in real-world problems involving community environmental health.
This program includes a full curriculum and a bi-lingual comic book.
Examining Faculty Attitudes and Strategies that Support Successful Flipped Teaching
In this NSF-funded project, a team of experienced STEM educators & researchers designed, developed, and studied the implementation of flipped teaching by faculty in their STEM classrooms at two institutions: here at SIUE and at St. Louis Community College. Flipped teaching is an instructional practice where traditional teaching is reversed, with instruction occurring outside of class time, allowing classroom time to be focused on the application of content.
Integrating Computational Thinking into a Minority Girls Program on Global Challenges (STEM+C)
This NSF-funded project will provide rigorous out-of-school time (OST) experiences that integrate a research-based STEM curriculum and new computational thinking (CT) activities with relevant pedagogy designed to engage minority girls. We are conducting exploratory research that examines the relationship between engaging in integrated CT-STEM activities and the acquisition of CT skills, STEM content knowledge, and a stronger sense of self as a future technologist.
Pathways into the Earth, Ocean, Polar, and Atmospheric & Geospace Sciences (GeoPATHS)
GEOPATHS scholars will work with SIUE professors to learn geotechnical skills, build professional networks, and participate in projects that use geosciences to support community health, safety, resiliency, and sustainability.
Safe and Inclusive Field Schools
The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville STEM Center, in collaboration with the Arkansas Archeological Survey and Mississippi State University, developed a project to investigate policies and procedures that help support safe and inclusive archaeological field schools in the southeastern United States.
Youth-Led Citizen Science Network for Community Environmental Assessment (Y-CITYSCI)
Y-CITYSCI is a program that provides underserved middle and high school youth with the opportunity to lead and participate in a citizen science project. In this program, students investigate issues in their community related to noise, soil, air, and land cover. The students will focus on their community and integrate technology into their investigations. These students will then use their growing technology skill to create website content and social media posts to share their findings with their community and beyond.
This program includes a full curriculum.