The 12 CAVIAT students in the iCREATE high school bioscience class at NAU are learning some basic Geographic Information Systems (GIS) skills to help track patient health for their epidemiology projects. Corryn Smith patiently teaches the students the basics of GIS. Corryn has presented to the class twice this fall, and will certainly be helping them again as they prepare their group projects.
Corryn is an Instructor for the Geography, Planning, and Recreation department at NAU. She received her MS in Applied Geospatial Sciences with a Planning and Recreation Emphasis in May 2017. Her Master's thesis research looked at using geospatial technologies to locate travel networks (Forest Service roads and trails) in Flagstaff. Her interests include: geospatial technologies and recreation, geospatial technologies and sustainable land management, GIS in education, and Python Programming for Women and Minorities. Thank you Corryn for your friendly and professional help!
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NAU Seniors Kara McAlister, Isabella McCormick, Abby Rulison, Danna Durney, and Darlene Escobedo, organized a career fair for the students in the Kinlani Bordertown Dormitory for their Social Work 423 Course taught by Dr. Anne Medill. They raised funds for pizza for the Flagstaff High School students who live at the dorm. The five students worked together to invite different professionals to the Career Fair. A partial list includes: Rick Wright from the City of Flagstaff Wastewater Treatment; Jennifer Dunivn from Empire Beauty School; Jessica Garard and Matt Brydenthal from Re/Max Peak Properties; Efeleina Yazzie from Coconino County Adult Probation; Owner and Personal trainer Jesse Coddington from New Roots; Doug Hatch from Hatch Plumbing; Highland Fire Department firefighters Casey Wood, Chris Thomas and Earl Callendar; Mark Cox from the Boys and Girls Club; Hannah Ris, Matt Dyer, Norria Brice, Regina Eddie and Sophia Maceira from NAU Nursing; Danny Gutierrez and Howard Coldwell from the US Forest Service; Marina Xoc Vasquez from Applied Indigenous Studies; and Sonny Lomadofkie, a Native Initiatives Mentor. Thank you all! Dr. Medill has student groups from both sections of this class form teams to create a meaningful project in the community. Thank you, Dr. Medill and students. And thank you to all the community members that gave their time and energy to this wonderful event! Also, thanks to STEM VISTA Member Vicki Anderson for her support of this project!
Dr. Darlene Lee, an anatomical and clinical pathologist with Northern Arizona Healthcare, led a tour of Clinical and Pathology Laboratory at Flagstaff Medical Center to the high school iCREATE students. The iCREATE class is unique in the pronounced role of community members to the success of the class. Dr. Lee gave a tour last year, highlighted here, and it was one of the most memorable tours for the class. She made this one even more hands-on with additional partners from FMC. Garn Bailey, Pathology Assistant, once again thoroughly engaged the students with a variety of human organs that he prepares for the pathologist to more critically analyze as needed. He dissected a gall bladder to show the gall stones, as well as a kidney that showed a cancerous area. He also went through the entire process of preparing thin sections from larger tissues and organs for analysis. The surgeons in the hospital rely on the Clinical and Pathology Laboratory to rapidly prepare and assess samples while some patients are in surgery; to make sure they have removed all cancerous cells, or to determine the specific pathogen. When that occurs, tissues are quickly put on ice and are then sliced thinly in a cryostat, which keeps the tissues frozen. They are then rapidly stained and assessed by the pathologist. This entire process can occur in 20 minutes so the surgeon is able to receive the information during surgery to improve the patient's outcome. The students then looked at blood samples with Dr. Lee. They were able to identify components of blood including white blood cells (leukocytes), red blood cells (erythrocytes), and platelets (thrombocytes). Platelets are tiny blood cells that help your body form clots to stop bleeding. She also showed them the image of the cancerous kidney tissue from the kidney Garn had shown them earlier. Students observed the hospital's blood supply with Jordan Ippolito, a Medical Lab Scientist at FMC. She told the students that the shelf life of platelets is only 5 days, while frozen plasma is good for a year. Red blood cells are only functionally sound for 40 days because their ability to carry oxygen (their primary role) is impaired after that. The importance of donating blood cannot be overstated! Two students volunteered to have their blood drawn so they could determine what blood type they are. Phlebotomist Troy Schafer cracked jokes with the students to put them at ease. Jordan then had the remaining students look at blood sample directly through the microscope so they could put their earlier practice to use. The final activity was to discuss what having blood types A,B, AB, or O really means, and then to complete the analysis of the blood types using the antigens that can cause blood to clot, depending on what the blood type is. Thank you again for the fascinating and educational tour of the Clinical and Pathology Laboratory at FMC! Special thanks to Dr. Darlene Lee, Garn Bailey, Jordan Ippolito and Troy Schafer! You are living up to your mission and goal; you definitely wowed us!
Melissa (Lissy) Enright, a graduate student in ECOSS at NAU, shared her research on the hydraulics (water movement) of giant redwood trees with the high school students in the iCREATE class at NAU. Lissy shared some of her background with the students including working on an oceanographic vessel with the Sea Education Association, working for the National Park Service in Hawaii, and for American Conservation Experience as an AmeriCorps Member in both Flagstaff and Alaska! She also worked with Honko, an NGO (non-governmental organization) working in partnership with the coastal communities of Madagascar on mangrove conservation. She showed the students the website for the Student Conservation Association where you can search through their list of opportunities, including those for students under 18 years old! Lissy's experience helped her to get a "real job" working with the US Forest Service in Alaska doing a Forest Inventory and Assessment. She also worked in Northern California where she now has her research area studying water stress at the top of Redwood trees. Lissy illustrated how the stems of the tree branches can get embolisms (air bubbles) from high water stress. She climbs the trees using a jumar system and then brings the branches home to Flagstaff to study the hydraulic conductivity of the tree. Lissy asked the students why the pine needles and branches might be ore water stressed at the top of the trees than down below. Even though the base of the redwood is in an often moist environment, the tops of the trees are more exposed to sun; but the primary reason is that water is pulled all the way up the xylem (water tubes) of the tree from the ground to 250-400 feet! So the top of the tree is more like a dry climate. Lissy took the students into the laboratory where she measures the hydraulic conductivity of the branches. She had them assist her with several experimental procedures she uses to determine levels of water stress in the redwood trees. She told us: We measure hydraulic conductivity on the hydraulic line, a system of tubes that connects a stem segment to an upstream reservoir of solution (water with a tiny bit of potassium chloride)suspended a meter above the sample, and a downstream balance. The water flowing through the sample is measured as it gets to the balance. We use this measurement to infer about the degree of embolism, or air bubbles blocking the flow of water, present in the xylem cells. If the conductivity is very low, for example, we presume that there are a lot of embolisms, and the tree the sample came from was subject to a lot of water stress. In the image above, a student measures pressure for another experiment. Lissy explains: When a piece of a plant is clipped off, the water inside sucks back away from the cut surface. This is because there is tension in the water in plants. If the plant is more water stressed, the tension is greater. We can measure this in units of pressure with a pressure chamber. We first cut a sample, then insert it into the chamber with the cut end extending out of the hole in the top. When we turn up the pressure in the chamber, the water will be forced back to the cut surface. We measure the pressure at which the water reaches the surface, and know that that number is equal to the tension that existed in the water in the plant before we cut it. If it takes a lot of pressure, then the plant was very water stressed.
Thank you, Lissy, for the wonderful presentation and the engaging hands-on research in your lab! Guest Blog Post by Dawn Pfeffer, STEM VISTA at Killip STEM Academy
Girls Teaching Girls is a mentorship program between NAU students and young girls in Flagstaff at select locations. Girls Teaching Girls provide lessons and hands-on activities to promote leadership, community activism, empowerment, and Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM) related skills with the goal of fostering female leaders of the future. We kicked off the first week of the after school program at Killip Elementary with four girls participating on day one and ended the week with eight Killip students! The NAU girls seemed just as excited as the Killip girls to see this program get started. The first week included drawing pictures, talking about important problems they see and starting to ask the question "how can we fix these problems?" Project Questions posed by NAU students that the Killip students selected from are listed below: 1. How can we become sustainable citizens? 2. How can we create a positive change through art? 3. How do we destroy stereotypes and stigmas? 4. Why is it important that we are all diverse and different? 5. How can we maintain a happy brain? 6. How can we get adults to better understand kids? What does it mean to be bilingual? This problem based learning mentorship is just getting started and we here at Killip cannot wait to see what these Girls accomplish! Note: Girls Teaching Girls is also mentoring at the Boys and Girls Club in Flagstaff so stay tuned for more updates! Guest Blog Post by Erin O’Keefe, Events & Outreach Coordinator with Flagstaff's Open Space Program through the STEM Education VISTA Project The Indigenous Youth STEM Academy Completes its Pilot Year This past summer, the City of Flagstaff Open Space Program implemented a pilot year of the Indigenous Youth STEM Academy (IYSA) at Picture Canyon Natural and Cultural Preserve. As Native Americans are one of the most underrepresented groups within STEM careers and among STEM degree-holders, I recognized a need for focused programming with Indigenous youth on these topics. As such, the goal of this program is to provide Indigenous youth in Flagstaff and the surrounding communities with an opportunity to learn about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in connection to culture, community, and stewardship while providing resources for pursuing higher education and professional careers in STEM fields. Programming took place at Picture Canyon Natural and Cultural Preserve as it provides a unique opportunity for learning about Northern Sinagua petroglyphs and habitation sites, has an outdoor classroom area, interpretive signs throughout the Preserve, and represents a place of cultural importance for many surrounding tribal communities. The Academy consists of daylong sessions with various Indigenous youth groups. The key components of each session include an interpretive tour of the Preserve, a panel discussion with local STEM professionals and students, followed by an interactive learning project. This year, we programmed with three different groups: the National Indian Youth Leadership Project (Gallup, New Mexico), Native Americans for Community Action (Flagstaff, Arizona), and Kinlani Bordertown Dormitory (Flagstaff, Arizona). Youth participants ranged from middle school to high school age, and represented tribes including Navajo, Zuni, Acoma Pueblo, Laguna Pueblo, Hopi, and Apache. The learning projects included rock art documentation and plant identification. Our panelists represented STEM fields from organizations including the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, Natural Channel Design, Friends of the Rio de Flag, Museum of Northern Arizona, and Departments from Northern Arizona University including Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, Communication, Forestry, and Applied Indigenous Studies. Panelists discussed their experiences in STEM, why they are passionate about their field and their advice for young people pursuing education and careers in those areas. In order to gauge response to the programming as well as any changes in interest to pursue STEM in college or careers, our youth participants filled out pre- and post- survey questionnaires. The surveys included questions such as, “How interested are you in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) as a potential career?”, “How interested are you in going to college?”, and “How important do you feel it is for Native Americans to work in STEM fields?” One participant expressed, “It is extremely important for Native Americans to work in STEM careers. I feel Native Americans are extremely overlooked as we are seen to not be well-educated.” Another participant stated, “One of the biggest barriers [to Native Americans pursuing careers in STEM] is poor education in our home towns.” Overall, we identified increased interest in pursuing college as well as learning more about various STEM areas and topics. There was a large number of positive responses to the programming activities, and many of our participants expressed that they found great value in the panel discussions specifically. As this is the first year of the Indigenous Youth STEM Academy, we plan to incorporate lessons learned into year two of programming in 2018. We plan to focus on enhanced collaboration with a specific youth group in order to provide continuous and more focused programming to build upon each session rather than providing only one-time sessions with various youth groups. We will also be transitioning our program schedule from summer sessions to sessions taking place during the school year to be able to engage youth more consistently throughout the year.
It is extremely exciting and rewarding to have these types of experiences where we are learning alongside Indigenous youth and witnessing their strength, intelligence, leadership and potential. We greatly look forward to continuing these efforts into the next year and the future. My name is Madison Ledgerwood. I am currently a STEM VISTA at NAU's Rethink Possible. I was raised and shaped in the Southwest which nurtured my love for the land, and of all species. I relocated to indigenous land, Flagstaff, in 2010. This is where earned my degree in Environmental Studies, engaged with the community around the intersection of social and environmental issues in the Action Research Teams (ARTs), and began to uncover my own power and potential. Before long, I realized I wanted to more deeply understand what diverse experiences and understandings led individuals to begin fostering a thriving and harmonious world and what it took for them to devote themselves to such engagement and maintain their well-being. I researched this and earned my MA in Sustainable Communities. I also created Community and University Public Inquiry, an interdisciplinary community-based research program, while in graduate school.
Now, I yearn for a world in which people do not feel powerless but utterly capable; a world in which people dream of more sustainable, thriving futures and find their unique way to contribute to creating such a world. When I tune into the earth, the plants, the rocks, the wind at the base of the San Francisco Peaks, I know that hope is found in more of us finding our niche, in more of us finding the unique work we have to offer and that is needed now on the planet. I am committed to mentoring others who are searching for their skills, power and potential. I aim to spread light by blooming emerging seeds into empowered leaders. My STEM VISTA position cultivates my dream by providing me the opportunity to design curriculum, connect to volunteers in diverse fields, and expand the reach of a program that engages students around the “big questions” of college, such as what they want to major in and contribute to the world. My name is Camille Alexander, and I am a first-year AmeriCorps VISTA member at STEM City. I am serving as their Evaluation Coordinator for this year, and my job is creating an inventory of STEM assets in Flagstaff and evaluating these programs for the purpose of bridging the gap between STEM leaders and institutions that traditionally serve students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. I am really excited for this year of service in a wonderful, tight-knit community.
I was born in Detroit, Michigan, but Phoenix has been home for most of my life. I graduated from Arizona State University with a B.S. in Biological Sciences, and served as an AmeriCorps member through the American Conservation Experience. My goal is to attend graduate school in the near future and have a career in environmental education. I am most interested in teaching young children the importance of environmental stewardship so they will have a greater appreciation of our natural world as an adult. Everything that I learn through my year of service will put me in the right direction. I look forward to working with you all! Dr. Laura Huenneke's Address to the Sustainable Economic Development Initiative's Annual Teacher Awards in Sustainability Curriculum in May of 2017 Introduction: The SEDI TASC awards recognize our outstanding educators and their exemplary projects focused on sustainability. At the TASC celebration in May 2017, Dr. Laura Huenneke, Professor Emeritus, School of Earth Sciences & Environmental Sustainability at Northern Arizona University, discussed building our future by strengthening the educational ecosystem.
Dr. Laura Huenneke's address: Back in the spring, I jumped at the chance to be part of the presentation of SEDI's Teacher Awards for Sustainable Curriculum, celebrating some of our fantastic teachers. Teachers are one of our community's most precious resources – truly changing lives and creating the future, both for individuals and for society as a whole. The SEDI TASC awards recognize our outstanding educators and their exemplary projects focused on sustainability. I’d like to take a moment to flip this on its head and reflect on the sustainability of outstanding teachers and education. That is, how can we build a future where we have many such teachers and many such schools, and where all our students over the long-term can benefit from these kinds of experiences? Awards like the SEDI sustainability awards do bring peer and community recognition to the individuals who have done inspired and inspiring work. We hope that recognitions like this make some of the effort and sacrifices worthwhile. Such recognition is valuable and necessary; but by itself it is not sufficient to ensure that these same teachers will stay with us in the years to come and will continue to succeed. Nor will these awards guarantee that future teachers are able to provide equivalent high-quality experiences. My academic background is as an ecosystem scientist, trained to think about entire systems and how individual pieces and processes are connected -- how they interact both positively and negatively. So I tend to think about education as a system – not just the individual teachers and students in a given classroom, but the larger context in which they operate. Many of those attending the spring awards ceremony know far more than I do about K-12 education, so what I say here is pretty general – but I’d like to ask you to think through some of the parts of this educational ecosystem and how more of us can help support the system as a whole. There are teachers at a single grade level within a school, learning from and supporting one another. There are connections among the teachers within a school as students move up through the grades, deliberately attending to how curriculum, experiences, and human relationships link together and build through a student’s journey through that school. The connections among teachers, as well as the working environment within a school, are facilitated and shaped by a principal and the culture in a school. Is the principal able to connect the teachers, and is there support for that school and that principal from the families and from neighboring institutions? Is there room and support for creative approaches? In turn, the connections among teachers, principals, and schools in a district are all shaped by the district and its professional leadership. What resources does the district have to invest in and attend to professional development, to career development, to communication, and to supporting equity of opportunities across schools? How much support do district leaders receive in their role as liaison or interface - or buffer! - with state and federal requirements and opportunities? The state shapes this complex environment with its policies and funding. Arizona of course sets policies around teacher qualifications and expectations, and calls for adoption of the Common Core (Arizona Career and College Readiness) or other standards – I probably don’t need to say much more about what many perceive as a lack of leadership in this arena. State funding patterns result not just in our teacher pay scales falling behind those of other states (limiting our ability to recruit and retain), but also in severe infrastructure gaps (e.g., for rural schools) and also instability caused by episodic RIFS or last-minute changes in teaching assignments. State universities like our own Northern Arizona University are our primary sources of new or early career teachers; state policies shape their curriculum and training which then influences the teachers' success in the first few years of their career. At the overarching federal level, we currently seem to be moving away from expectations of education as a pathway for social mobility, innovation, and opportunity. Finally, I must acknowledge – I personally am motivated by our location and the very special history of this area: remembering that some of our neighbors (the southwestern tribes) are the original inhabitants of these landscapes and have a truly long-term perspective. Remembering this reminds me to commit to ensuring access to excellent education and preparation for those who will build the future of all our communities. This complex nest of multiple levels is our educational ecosystem; how can we best sustain it? How should we add to or build on recognitions like the SEDI awards for individual teachers, to help ensure that teachers are operating within the most supportive system possible? Many of us often feel frustrated at the seeming impossibility of shifting state or federal policies, funding, or the like. But as a community, I would challenge us to get creative about filling in or substituting for weaknesses in the current ecosystem. Of course, individuals in our community do support schools financially through the Education Tax Credit program, and so do our local businesses (e.g., the school supplies drives at the start of each year). But -- what else might we doing? Could we provide opportunities for teachers in the summer that would help counteract the impact of low salaries while providing professional development? These might include teacher development experiences, internships or short-term employment opportunities, or scholarship support for graduate courses. What could we as a community provide in terms of facilitation for planning? Community groups, employers or industry associations could create more open forums for discussion about local workforce needs and how skills or knowledge relevant to them might fit into the curriculum at various levels. And then those groups could follow up with some of the information, experts, and resources to supplement what schools and teachers already have to develop those skills. What could we as a community provide in terms of the larger policy framework for schools or for the district? Members of the collaborative group LAUNCH Flagstaff are keeping an eye on national and international best practices and standards, while STEM City works to expand high-quality experiences in the science, engineering, and technology arena. These groups can serve as resources and collaborators for curriculum specialists in our districts and schools, figuring out together how to align the community’s educational objectives with external policy or state standards. These are just a few starting points – to get your creative juices flowing. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it well: “A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence.” Even if we think our educational ecosystem has some deficits, we can – and we absolutely should – make the effort to change parts of that system for the better. In closing, I hope all of us as individuals, and the organizations we represent – LAUNCH Flagstaff, SEDI, STEM City, the schools and the district, the business community, our residents and neighbors – will find ways to collaborate in strengthening the entire ecosystem within which our outstanding teachers work. Thanks again for joining SEDI in celebrating some of the outstanding teaching in our region – and congratulations to the fantastic educators being recognized. The first cohort of 15 Volunteers in Service to America (VISTAs) are ending their year of service to the Flagstaff STEM Education Project, a collaboration with NAU's Civic Service Institute and STEM City. We are beyond thrilled and proud of all they have given to our community. The following infographic shares a little bit of the successes these VISTAs have contributed to the agencies they worked with and to all of Flagstaff in pursuing the overall goal of the project: The Flagstaff STEM Education VISTA Project seeks to increase the academic performance of low-income youth in STEM fields and their interest in pursuing STEM careers. You can read more about the first cohort of VISTAs here. Please congratulate them all on their service. Thank you, thank you, thank you from Flagstaff STEM City! Front Row: Maria Archibald, Mira Peterson, Kate Stanley, Megan Carmel, Meg Adakai Kabotie, STEM Coordinator Mindy Bell; Back Row: Dylan Lenzen, Lisa Winters, Chelsea Silva, Geoffrey Kie, Vicki Anderson, Robert McCann, VISTA Leader Kathy Farretta. Not pictured: Jake Burwell, Holly Havlicek, and Erin O'Keefe. |