Water Security for Texas

The project specifically aims to leverage the scholarship program to identify the unique attributes of STEM-talented and to validate the rationale behind the selection criteria of the scholarships. Promoting an active learning environment has long been recognized as a crucial element to motivate and inspire under-represented students. However, the importance of developing a scientific identity has not been clearly demonstrated as part of effective high-impact practices. The project investigators hypothesize that learning activities built on a coherent subject matter of regional and social significance will instill a sense of scientific identity and bolster the academic achievement of scholars. As such, the project will design a scholarship program to better understand how to maximize its effectiveness, from the standpoint of scholars’ performance improvement, by incorporating various supporting activities to help scholars develop a sense of scientific and professional identity. It will also differentiate the effects of scholarship selection criteria, length of scholarship, the status of cohorts, and the types of mentorship practices on the academic achievement of the scholars. The project will be evaluated using performance metrics from both faculty mentors (types of practices and their duration and frequency) and scholars (academic performance, retention to graduation, graduate school matriculation). It will especially value the ability and aspiration of the scholars to matriculate in graduate schools because of its long-lasting impact on the transformation of local communities. The results of this project will be made available through campus-wide seminars, grade school teachers workshops, STEM education and professional conferences, and peer-reviewed publications. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.

OBJECTIVES OF OUR RESEARCH STUDY:

Objective 1: Cultivate faculty-student mentorship and formulate innovative learning assessment tools that would elevate their academic and career success.

Objective 2: Challenge conventional STEM-discipline teaching outcome by focusing co-curriculum designs onto an applied field with critical socio-techno-economic implications (i.e., water-related issues). The expected outcome of this objective is to prepare students with skills to fit in today’s job market and prepare them to be an impactful player in his/her career.

Objective 3: Identify the academically motivated STEM students in the existing demographic profile that can meet the scholarship requirements.

Objective 4: Leverage the S-STEM project to frame a future recruitment strategy of STEM students (including transfer students) and revise the curriculum to advance our STEM programs.