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By Hannah Halusker<\/b> In February of 2019, sixth-grade students at McCants Middle School in Anderson, South Carolina, fashioned toy cars out of leftover bottles and boxes, strapped a battery pack and a fan to the cars\u2019 rears, and set them off down the hallway of McCants, the cars idling past speckled tiles and blue metal lockers. The United States is now more racially and ethnically diverse than it has ever been, but that diversity is not yet reflected in the sciences. In 2017, traditionally underrepresented minorities \u2014 African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders \u2014 accounted for nearly a third of the U.S. population, yet only about 17 percent were employed as scientists and engineers in the country. Still existing somewhere on the internet\u2019s \u201ccloud\u201d is a long-forgotten spreadsheet with the names of each Clemson student enrolled in the 2016 INVESTors Creative Inquiry. Beside their names are lists of middle schools in the Upstate: three per student, with many of the schools receiving government funding because of their location in traditionally low-income communities. Each student was tasked with reaching out to every science teacher at the schools they were assigned in an attempt to forge new outreach partnerships in the Upstate region. These days, Morris no longer has to make early-morning drives to schools for the INVESTors, but she still likes to drop in on a lesson here and there. The Creative Inquiry has officially taken off without her, and Morris says she\u2019s happy that the students are able to lead the entire operation on their own. As a duo, Sherley and Knowles have directed a team of 17 Clemson students who are dedicated to the INVESTors mission \u2014 nearly six times the number of members the group initially had in 2014.
\n<\/b>Photography by \u00a0Josh Wilson<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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\nIt was an exercise designed to teach them about the science of electricity, specifically how electricity flows through a circuit and converts into other types of energy \u2014 \u00a0light, chemical, or heat, to name a few.
\nThe activity was part of a daylong visit from the CU INVESTors, a group of Clemson University students who are \u201cINV<\/strong>esting in E<\/strong>xcellence in S<\/strong>cience and T<\/strong>echnology\u201d by bringing lessons and experiments in STEM to students from economically disadvantaged, minority backgrounds.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>A need to fill<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>
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\nSeveral years ago, Meredith Morris, an associate professor of genetics and biochemistry who teaches molecular biochemistry at Clemson, began to notice that racial and ethnic gap reflected in her classes.
\n\u201cAs I\u2019ve watched the classroom landscape change, I\u2019ve found that it\u2019s not mirroring the change that we see in the general population,\u201d Morris said. \u201cMy classroom dynamic is shifting; we have a more diverse culture, but the students that are going into sciences are still very homogenous.\u201d
\nOne way to build diversity, Morris decided, is to impact students while they\u2019re young, and she has science to back up her idea. Studies in psychology have shown that children\u2019s self-concepts and aspirations are often cemented by their teenage years. Other studies suggest that proximity to science \u2014 that is, knowing a friend or family member who works in a STEM field \u2014 helps young children to familiarize themselves with science.
\n\u201cThe idea at that point was to bridge the gap between what kids were learning in the classroom and what scientists did in the lab,\u201d Morris said. \u201cWe wanted to get into contact with students who didn\u2019t necessarily have access to a lot of science resources.\u201d
\nThus, CU INVESTors was born in 2014 as part of Clemson University\u2019s Creative Inquiry program, which creates team-based, hands-on research experiences for undergraduates. In its initial stages, the group was a three-student operation headed by Morris, and it worked exclusively with a high school biology teacher in Columbia, South Carolina. Once a month, the INVESTors would wake at 3 a.m. and make the groggy trek to the state\u2019s capital, weaving through morning rush traffic on I-26 to get there. While the students slept in the backseat, Morris cruised to the sounds of NPR. In the trunk was more than $1,000 worth of equipment and supplies \u2014 borrowed from teaching labs at Clemson University \u2014 that was necessary to teach the high schoolers how to analyze DNA like a real-life laboratory geneticist. Morris had also developed lessons for the students about her area of research: neglected tropical diseases and the parasites that cause them.
\n\u201cI had this really na\u00efve feeling of: \u2018We\u2019re going to go there, I\u2019m going to tell them about parasites and these horrible diseases, and they\u2019re going to be so influenced, they\u2019ll want to change the world,\u2019\u201d Morris said. \u201cWe were going to do molecular biology experiments and make genetic constructs at the high school, then bring them back to Clemson to study and \u2026 Well, that was just insanity, I don\u2019t know what we were thinking.\u201d
\nAs it turns out (to no surprise in Morris\u2019 hindsight), high schoolers aren\u2019t fans of being lectured to, and genetics, a specialized discipline within biology, can be difficult to grasp without much prior exposure to the subject. Yet at the high school in Columbia, the INVESTors discovered an even greater teachable moment that set the course of the group for years to follow.
\n\u201cThe high school students were a lot of fun, but what we found was we lost a lot of diversity when we worked at the high school level because those students\u2019 trajectories had already been set when they were younger,\u201d said Morris. \u201cThey were already labeled as remedial, honors or advanced placement students; they had already decided whether or not they enjoyed science and whether or not they could be a scientist. At that age, our lessons were just falling flat.\u201d
\nWith its trio of founding students about to graduate, INVESTors appeared for a moment as if it might not survive another academic year. However, the group met August of 2016 with a transitive mindset, relocating its outreach to Clemson-area schools, expanding its lessons into other STEM disciplines, and shifting its target audience to middle schoolers, ranging in age from 11 to 13 years old.
\nBrett Sherley and Krista Knowles, members of the class of 2019, were there for the regrouping. Their dedication helped to turn CU INVESTors into something of an overnight success.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\"You can do it too\"<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>
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\n\u201cWe sent them cold emails, and I personally didn\u2019t get a single response,\u201d said Knowles, a biochemistry major. \u201cI think we only got two responses in that entire time, which is crazy to think about because now we can\u2019t accommodate all of the teachers who want us to come to their schools.\u201d
\nAfter making connections with teachers at Lakeview Middle in West Greenville and McCants Middle in Anderson, the team set out, building a regular schedule of monthly meetings in which they take over a teacher\u2019s classroom for a day and lead hands-on science activities: the art of blood-typing, a relay race to learn how genes are inherited, competitions to build the most weather-resistant \u201chouse.\u201d The CU INVESTors aim to make science fun and relatable through arts, crafts and games that help students envision themselves as future scientists-in-training. The response so far has been overwhelmingly positive.
\n\u201cA lot of the time, the teachers we work with have large classes, and they don\u2019t necessarily have the time to plan or lead the activities that we do all by themselves,\u201d said Sherley, a genetics and microbiology major. \u201cWe\u2019ll come in with eight students split between classrooms and we can work one-on-one with all of the students, which gives the teacher time to catch up on grading, and they seem to really appreciate it all. Mrs. McMann, the teacher we work with at McCants, tells us every time how happy she is that we visit her classes. \u2018My students love it and they\u2019re always involved\u2019 \u2014 \u00a0her emails are so positive and encouraging.\u201d
\nAnd it\u2019s not just the teachers who are impacted. Five years since its inception and more than 400 children later, the INVESTors are well accustomed to the thank you\u2019s and the questions of \u201cWhen are you coming back?\u201d from eager middle schoolers, excited to learn time and again.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ll have students leave our lessons, run down the hall and shout to their friends, \u2018You\u2019re going to love going to this class today, it\u2019s so much fun!\u2019\u201d Knowles said.
\n\u201cOr we\u2019ll be in the hallway and another class will see what we\u2019re doing with our class, and they\u2019ll say, \u2018Why aren\u2019t we doing that? When will we do that? Are we doing that today?\u2019 It\u2019s fun to see that they\u2019re excited and happy that we\u2019re there with them,\u201d said Taylor Creighton, a junior genetics student in the group.
\nAmid the children\u2019s enthusiasm are also stories of growth, of kids who had never taken much interest in their education until a day spent with the INVESTors. Some students have thanked the group for making their usually melancholy days a bit brighter; others admit the INVESTors helped them to \u201clike\u201d science a bit more than they did prior to the lesson.
\nElle Johnson, a junior genetics major, had one of those students in her first semester.
\n\u201cWhen we were teaching about human body systems, I remember Mrs. McMann told me about one specific student. She had never heard this student speak out or be vocal about an answer to a problem before. Yet, we would ask her questions, and she answered us multiple times,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI\u2019d never met this student before, and I didn\u2019t know that was a characteristic of hers, so it was cool to hear that and to know that we had had an impact on her.\u201d
\n\u201cThey\u2019re so easy to give up,\u201d Creighton added. \u201cThey\u2019ll say, \u2018No, I\u2019m just stupid. I don\u2019t know what to do.\u2019 A lot of times, the kids just need a support system, someone to tell them, \u2018No, you\u2019re not stupid, this is just hard, and I can help you.\u2019 And then you watch them overcome that challenge, and they become interested and involved in what we\u2019re doing.\u201d
\nTo extend their impact, at the end of each lesson the INVESTors show a presentation to the middle schoolers that details potential jobs they could seek based on the day\u2019s lesson. For instance, after the McCants students rolled cars down the hallway in the name of electricity, they returned to their classroom to learn how to become a mechanic, an engineer or an MRI technician. Importantly, the INVESTors share careers that are attainable with varying levels of education \u2014 from high school, to technical college, to four-year universities and professional schools. It\u2019s a facet of their lesson that aims to remove the intimidation from higher education, showing that everyone has a role to play in advancing science and technology.
\n\u201cIn my little group, I always ask them what they want to be when they grow up,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cSome of them say, \u2018I\u2019m not smart enough to be an engineer or a scientist.\u2019 And I always tell them they are, they can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>THE GRATIFYING PART<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>
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\nJohnson and Creighton are set to take over leadership in the upcoming academic year, and they have significant plans for where the INVESTors are headed. The group has already begun the process of securing University approval to survey middle school students and teachers in order to measure the INVESTors\u2019 effectiveness, and to track the students\u2019 career paths in the long term. They\u2019re also working to incorporate Spanish into their lessons to accommodate Spanish-speaking students, especially at Lakeview Middle School, which has a large proportion of students from Hispanic backgrounds. And of course, the group hopes to expand its reach to more students and more classrooms.
\nFor 2019 graduates Knowles and Sherley, CU INVESTors has been both a rewarding and transformative extracurricular experience. Sherley will begin a master\u2019s degree in nursing at Vanderbilt University in the fall of 2019 with long-term plans to become a family nurse practitioner in an underserved area. If it weren\u2019t for CU INVESTors, Sherley says she wouldn\u2019t have recognized the need for quality healthcare in low-income areas.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think I knew enough about the problem to know there was even a need for this type of work,\u201d Sherley said. \u201cOnce I got involved in INVESTors and began researching the issues involved, I got really interested in how I can pair it with what I want to do as a career. You see the disparities that exist, and it\u2019s so frustrating because these are things that could be fixed if enough people cared about them. Opening my eyes to that situation has been the most impactful.\u201d
\nKnowles, on the other hand, hopes to get involved in science education in order to make science accessible to kids from all walks of life.
\n\u201cLowering it from its pedestal, anybody can do science,\u201d Knowles said. \u201c[Some students] might have been told that science is only for the really smart kids, but they can<\/em> be really smart in this area if it\u2019s something they\u2019re interested in. Working toward that understanding is really important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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The United States is now more racially and ethnically diverse than it has ever been, but that diversity is not yet reflected in the sciences. In 2017, traditionally underrepresented minorities \u2014 African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders \u2014 accounted for nearly a third of the U.S. population, yet only about 17 percent were employed as scientists and engineers in the country. Several years ago, Meredith Morris, an associate professor of genetics and biochemistry who teaches molecular biochemistry at Clemson, began to notice that racial and ethnic gap reflected in her classes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":21097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[996,2788],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-20736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-these-hills","tag-diversity-in-stem","tag-summer-2019-in-these-hills"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/05\/STEM-McCants-Middle-School_JW-04.12.19082.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20736"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}