By Dave Engelthaler, Associate Professor at the Translational Genomics Research Institute and the Chair of the Northern Arizona Leadership Alliance. This column was adapted from the keynote speech, given by the author, at Science Foundation Arizona's "Giving a Voice to STEM" Conference at NAU on September 30, 2016. I have often referred to Flagstaff as the Shining City on Arizona’s Hill. It is no accident that I borrow this phrase from the famous, precisely American, ideal of a “Shining City on a Hill”. The early pilgrims imagined that they could create such a community for themselves after escaping the historical norms of European controls on destiny. Three hundred years later John F. Kennedy reminded of this founding ideal, stating that the world was watching our shining city and that we must live up to our promise; shortly there after, we embarked on one of the greatest journeys of all time and put a man’s foot on the moon (Flagstaff had something to do with that, more on that below). Twenty years later, Ronald Reagan again reminded us of this American City on a Hill ideal; and while we may not often remember Reagan as a champion of science, he was convinced during his tenure to not only not cut the budget of the National Science Foundation, but rather double it, before he left office. But, as under Kennedy and Reagan and other presidents in before and after, no matter what our economic and cultural condition, we have always led the way in advancing humanity through the sciences. It is this ideal that convinces me that in Flagstaff, we are a Shining STEM City on Arizona’s Hill. In August of 2012, a group of Flagstaff Leaders, Businessmen, Educators, Scientists, and Concerned Citizens gathered in the woods on the base of the San Francisco Peaks. This group coalesced around the idea that Flagstaff is a STEM-rich City and that we as a community, businesses and schools, elected leaders and CEOs, teachers and families, needed to collectively band together to bring this rich surrounding to bear on the education of our children and enrich our communities. There, up on our Hillside, we all mutually pledged our time, talent and resources towards making the STEM City ideals happen. In short – our goal was to have the most STEM literate graduates living and working in a thriving STEM-based economy. We also had a unofficial motto for the day: “Dare Mighty Things”, which we borrowed from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who had, just the preceding night, coordinated the landing of the Curiosity Rover on Mars (and again, Flagstaff had something to do with this mission). And we both stole that from Teddy Roosevelt’s famous “Far better it is to dare mighty things” speech. Historian, Fredrick Jackson Turner, just a few years before TR’s famous speech, gave us his “Frontier Thesis”, and proclaiming that with the end of the American Frontier, so might be the end the American spirit. While Jackson aptly, and controversially, linked Americanism and American spirit to the discovery and exploration of the American Frontier, I feel that he missed the mark in not understanding the new frontiers that we would identify and explore. Our increased understanding and use of science and engineering opened up brand new frontiers, beyond land and sea. One such Frontier, The Space Frontier, was no longer a pastoral landscape to watch from afar. Our STEM City has been at the forefront of the exploration of this new frontier, from the discovery of Pluto, to the training of Apollo astronauts in our backyard, to the camera control of the Mars Rover from our USGS facility, and now finally to the deep space explorations through our Discovery Channel telescope, providing insight into the beginnings of our universe and images of a frontier previously unseen. Likewise, Flagstaff is home to TGen and the new Pathogen and Microbiome Institute at NAU, where some of the brightest minds are exploring another previously unseen universe – the microbiome. Every day, scientists in Flagstaff are embarking on the incredible journey into the human microbiome – the unseen ecosystem of bacteria and viruses and fungi that live on and in the human body. We are trying to understand how these microbes live, compete, collaborate and otherwise interact during our healthy and disease states. We, ourselves, our bodies, are the new frontier – and again that frontier exploration is here in our STEM City. And we could go on about the new frontiers ventured by W.L.Gore engineers and SenesTech scientists and MNA paleontologists and Park Service geologists. The frontier is here in our STEM City and some of the greatest pioneers are the trainers of our next generation– the teachers and education professionals of our great public, charter and private schools. Most are ready, willing and able to interact with all of these resources; and some, like former STEM City Teacher of the Year Jillian Worssam, just kick down the door and say: “Let’s do this thing!” Our STEM City is Worssam’s wildly successful Scientists in the Classroom. It is the Flagstaff Festival of Science (the longest running one in the country). We are the Coconuts; we are the Annual STEMMY'S Awards Ceremony; the STEM Art Competition; and the Super Bowl of STEM in the Dome event (where upwards of 8% of Flagstaff turns out!); we are the Space Station Science Experiment and the High Altitude Balloon Launches; and the superstar Killip Kindergarten Chess team that likes to challenge our Mayor. We are seventh-grade girls wearing lab coats inside a world-class research lab and we are a group of high schoolers rafting down our majestic Canyon to learn our geologic past. We are the Chamber Coding Camps. We are grad students teaching and learning in the K-12 classroom. We are parents, students and teachers on a hill having a star party. We are, in a phrase, America’s First STEM Community. Arizona, and the rest of the country, is watching our shining STEM City
and we must live up to our promise.
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Guest Blog Post by Lisa Winters, Flagstaff STEM Education Program VISTA Member with Grand Canyon Trust With wide eyes, note-filled worksheets, and an urge to move and explore, 5th graders from Killip Elementary School shout out their observations on a sunny, Tuesday morning at Upper Lake Mary. “We’re part of the Biosphere!” they proudly state. For the third year in a row, Killip Elementary School held a field trip revolving around the earth’s spheres: the atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. Over sixty 5th graders from the classes of Ms. Butterfield, Ms. Hernandez, and Ms. Blahut moved through four stations to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to the ecosystem around them at Lake Mary. Local experts led each of the sphere discussions. Lee Born (above), NAU professor and KNAU's staff meteorologist, represented the atmosphere with a lively conversation of atmospheric conditions, natural disasters, and how floods and hurricanes create changes that impact other spheres. Felix Parham (left), a geologist from the City of Flagstaff, was the geosphere expert. Students thought critically about not just the ground we stand on, but all of the material that forms the foundation of our earth, how it’s shaped, and what we extract from it. Also from the City of Flagstaff and a proud Killip Cougars alumni, Rae Byars (center) led the hydrosphere conversation. Students learned about the water cycle, and then connected the processes with the other spheres, as well as who and what needs water. Lisa Winters from Grand Canyon Trust, with Naturalist Chris Keefe, pulled things together by discussing the biosphere, and how all living organisms rely on the other spheres. Students identified animals and their habitats around Lake Mary. They then made connections between their own interactions as members of the biosphere with their needs from other spheres. Students reflected on the discussions they had at each station. And they will continue the learning back in the classroom where they will research a natural disaster and how the connections between spheres may change. They will conclude the unit by formally presenting their research posters.
This is what STEM education at Killip looks like, thanks to the dedication of the educators and the contributions of the "STEM professionals" from our community! "My name is Meg Kabotie and I am the VISTA for the Museum of Northern Arizona. I am looking forward to connecting youth in Flagstaff and the surrounding areas with all the STEM opportunities the museum has to offer!
I am a Flagstaff native and spent years during my childhood running around MNA. I lived there when I was a teenager while my dad painted a mural in the kiva gallery, and I have worked and volunteered there off and on for most of my adult life. I am a graduate of Northern Arizona University with dual majors in biomedical science and psychology with a minor in chemistry. While at NAU, I worked in a stream ecology lab assisting in entomology and symbiotic relationship research on Fossil Creek and Beaver Creek. I also worked in a cellular and molecular biology lab doing research funded by The Partnership for Native American Cancer Prevention studying possible molecular mechanisms of cancer. I love science in all its beautiful shapes and forms! I am especially passionate about conservation and appreciating the beauty and wonder of nature. Because of my long history with the museum, as well as my love of natural spaces especially around northern Arizona, I truly believe in the mission of the museum, which is to inspire a sense of love and responsibility for the beauty and diversity of the Colorado Plateau through collecting, studying, interpreting, and preserving the region's natural and cultural heritage. I believe the museum has unique opportunities to spread STEM education through projects learning about Environmental Science, Forestry, Hydrology, Ecology, Biology and all sub fields, Geology, Paleontology, Archeology, Anthropology, Reclamation and Clean Energy Technology, Pollution Control, Water Conservation and Treatment Technology, Environmental Engineering, LEED Building Engineering, and math as it is applied in all these fields. I also think that framing STEM education in this way may draw interest from historically underrepresented groups such as many of the Native American tribes around the Colorado Plateau, whose lives and history are deeply connected to the land. I would like to get more youth from these tribes involved with STEM education at MNA in addition to the youth living in Flagstaff and surrounding rural areas." Guest Blog by Karin Wadsack, Project Director, Northern Arizona University Northern Arizona University’s Dynamic and Active Systems Lab (DASL) in the department of mechanical engineering partnered with the NAU Upward Bound summer program to engage high school students in university research on energy harvesting and the development of drone technology. Twenty-one high school soon-to-be juniors, from across Northern Arizona, tested solar panels, built electrical circuits, and participated in a “wildlife-tracking hide-and-seek” exercise using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The students spent five weeks on campus at NAU learning about climate change and energy science and engineering. They performed hands-on activities and experiments, and went on a ‘field trip’ to the Engineering building to perform outdoor activities with the UAVs. “These experiences were invaluable for our UB students,” said Jacob Lesandrini, an instructional specialist with the Upward Bound Program. “They were pushed to understand the science behind energy, energy consumption, and the future of energy use in the country.” DASL faculty advisor Dr. Michael Shafer and students Gregory Hahn, Heather Cantin, Lauren Adoram-Kershner, Kellan Rothfus, and Matthew Robertson worked with the high school students over the course of several lessons and activities. DASL is currently engaged in two National Science Foundation grants: one to develop and test energy harvesting technologies for use on marine mammals tracking tags, and one to develop and deploy an open-source design for unmanned aerial vehicles to be used in tracking wildlife transmitter signals for ecological research.
Guest Blog by Karin Wadsack, Project Director, Northern Arizona University The Arizona Wind for Schools project partnered with the NAU’s Upward Bound programs and the Boys & Girls Club summer camp at Willow Bend in June to teach 48 young students about wind energy through hands-on engineering design activities.
Fourteen students in the Upward Bound Math/Science academy also worked with Wind for Schools to build windmills and learn basics about wind energy. In particular, while researching and analyzing various forms of renewable energy, students had the opportunity to move away from the theoretical and put their knowledge to work. Students were given a task, a collection of materials from which to build, and work time. “It was a powerful experience seeing students working together, going through iterations in their design, and completing the assigned task,” said Jacob Lesandrini, instructional specialist for Upward Bound at NAU. “Students not only had to have the background knowledge in renewable energy, but they also had to understand how to tackle a problem and work in a team. It’s exactly the sort of work they can expect in college and beyond, and we were very excited they had this opportunity.“ Wind for Schools project director Karin Wadsack and mechanical engineering undergraduate student Tessa Palazzolo worked with the high school students over the course of several lessons and activities.
The Wind for Schools project is funded by a grant from the United States Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Increasing the Number of Women in the STEM Workforce
A recent journal article in the Public Library of Science (PLOS) entitled “Women 1.5 Times More Likely to Leave STEM Pipeline after Calculus Compared to Men: Lack of Mathematical Confidence a Potential Culprit”, by J. Ellis, B. Fosdick, and C. Rasmussen, had some fascinating information and conclusions:
In this study, the proportions of students who cited reasons for not entering Calculus II were comparable across men and women, except for one: “I do not believe I understand the ideas of Calculus I well enough to take Calculus II.” This lack of confidence was cited by 35% of women, and only 14% of men, all of whom originally intended on pursuing a STEM career. Women switching from STEM pathways are citing a lack of understanding of the material in Calculus I as a reason for not continuing their STEM studies significantly more often than men. An article by K. Piatek-Jimenez, “On the Persistence and Attrition of Women in Mathematics”, states that: “Confidence in mathematical ability may also be a possible reason why women do not choose to pursue mathematics. Women frequently report lower self-confidence in mathematics than their equally talented male peers. This trend is true even amongst the most mathematically talented students.” Lack of confidence plagues women in other fields as well. "The Confidence Gap", by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, cite a number of studies. Hewlett-Packard found that women applied for a promotion only when they believed they met 100 percent of the qualifications listed for the job; while men applied when they thought they could meet 60 percent of the job requirements. Brenda Major, a social psychologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, started studying the problem of self-perception decades ago. “I would set up a test where I’d ask men and women how they thought they were going to do on a variety of tasks.” She found that the men consistently overestimated their abilities and subsequent performance, and that the women routinely underestimated both, while the actual performances did not differ in quality. “It is one of the most consistent findings you can have.” Margie Warrell, in a recent Forbes article, “For Women To Rise We Must Close 'The Confidence Gap' wrote: “…wherever I’ve worked in the world, I’ve consistently that a fundamental lack of belief in our own value, worth and ability to achieve consistently tempers female ambition and holds women back." She cited an eight-year study by Wiebke Bleidorn that analyzed data from over 985,000 men and women across 48 countries, from Norway to New Zealand, Kuwait to South Korea, asking them to rate the phrase: “I see myself as someone who has high self-esteem”, and found that across the board – regardless of culture or country, men have higher self-esteem than women. “Math for Girls, Math for Boys”, by A.K. Whitney in the Atlantic, stated that only one in ten contestants in the International Math Olympiad are female and many teams have no girls at all. Last year’s U.S. Team, which took gold for the first time in 21 years, was all male. Sherry Gong, who in 2007 was the second American girl in International Math Olympiad history to get the gold medal, recalled getting a pep talk during a competition from her coach. “I thought I was doing really badly, but ... she said girls tend to underestimate how well they are doing.” What can we do to increase confidence and foster perseverance for all students to succeed in high-level mathematics and STEM studies? Programs to increase confidence and persistence, as well as STEM skills, are growing in STEM City (aka Flagstaff). Highlighted programs include: Girls on the Run (GOTR), celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, has a primary goal of increasing self-confidence in young women. See this STEM City blog by Marney Babbitt on how you can participate. Growth Mindset is being used by a number of teachers in Flagstaff including Elii Chapman, a math and science teacher at Flagstaff Junior Academy, and the runner up for the 2016 Coconino County Teacher of the Year. (Look up Carol Dweck and Angela Duckworth to learn more.) All-Girl Events/Competitions including all girls’ math or chess tournaments is another way to reduce the social issues that come with young women in competitive environments with young men. The Flagstaff Chess Club will hold its 3rd Annual All Girls Chess Tournament in January, hosted by a strongly supportive Lowell Observatory staff, and including a lunchtime talk by a female astronomer. The Cactus-Pine Girl Scouts have held all girls engineering events, coding workshops, and after-school STEM activities for local students. With Math I Can is being promoted by FUSD math specialist Jane Gaun, and others. This is a pledge we can all take to not make negative comments about mathematics! INTEL Math and other math education courses are offered to local math teachers through FUSD and the Coconino County Educational Services Agency (CCESA). Cash for Calculators is an initiative of FUSD and the Greater Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce to encourage businesses to purchase graphing calculators for schools so students can use them during the year and be more prepared for the exams that require these calculators. Engineering is Elementary (EiE) has design challenges that encourage girls and all students to increase persistence, creativity, confidence, and more. The award-winning curricula from the Museum of Science Boston (MOS) is widely available in Flagstaff. FUSD has two EiE kits at each grade level in all ten elementary schools. Thanks to funding from the Arizona Community Fund of Flagstaff (ACFF), the CCESA has all 20 kits available for K-5 teachers in any school to check out after they have taken the free workshop on using the curricula. STEM City, with funding from ACFF, the W.L. Gore Foundation and the Ernest and Evelyn Chilson Fund, have four out-of-school time kits available to Girl Scout troops, STEM clubs, etc. The nationally-recognized Center for Science Teaching and Learning at NAU is working with Flagstaff's U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Center and the MOS to create three new engineering units with an astrogeology theme and cutting-edge science. Ready.Set.Code is a Greater Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce initiative working to increase computer and app coding skills in students. Scott Hathcock and cohorts at the Chamber launched Ready.Set.Code with both “Hack the Class”, and the “Summer of Code” events, after least year’s initial coding camps at College America were such a success. Robotics Camps and Clubs are both growing in Flagstaff. The County Parks and Recreation Department held two lego robotics camps in June and has room available for their two upcoming camps the first week of August. The CocoNuts robotics team leads summer camps for students and has an upcoming camp for adults interested in coaching robotics. The camp is only $20 and is coming July 26 and 27th if you are interested! The Girl Scouts recently hosted a Video Game Design Workshop for 50 girls at NAU. Killip Elementary has a K-2 coding club, FJA has a middle school coding club, and we know that the many schools with robotics teams use coding to get those robots moving! STEM City has held two free Code.org workshops with master teacher Janice Mak, and also freely loans out instruction materials. STEM City also has engineering kits, bioscience kits, and more, to freely loan out to teachers and home-school parents. Coconino Community College now offers two engineering courses as well as advanced math and physics, and has an Engineering Pathways grant to increase engineering in middle schools, high schools and at CCC. Northern Arizona University has a higher percentage of women in science and engineering than most colleges and universities (data coming soon)! Please contact STEM City if you have programs you would like highlighted in a blog post or in the STEM Community e-letter. And thank you for all you do to increase both skills and confidence in our youth! Thank you to Melissa Sevigny of KNAU and the Arizona Science and Innovation Desk for the interview on this article and inspiring this post! The Girl Scouts held a two-day Video Game Weekend Workshop at Northern Arizona University on July 1st and 2nd hosting 50 6th – 10th grade girls, over half from the Navajo Nation, on campus. The girls gained the full college experience with meals in the dining hall, an overnight in the dorms, instruction from a college professor. For the past year the Girl Scouts have partnered with ASU Assistant Professor Ashish Amresh to host multiple “Girls Design Video Games” workshops at the ASU Polytechnic campus. Dr. Amresh directs the ASU Interactive Lab and is an Assistant Professor in Software Engineering and is leading the Computer Gaming curriculum initiatives at Arizona State University, where he founded the Computer Gaming Certificate, Camp Game and UTBC summer programs. This was their first overnight camp, and first camp at NAU. In this two day program Girl Scouts explored what technology has to offer and met professionals in technology fields. The girls learned what it takes to be a video game developer and created their own video game! They also learned the basics of Java Script, how to create an app, and participated in a competition to identify the characteristics of an innovative video game. Thank you to Professor Amresh, Corey Heath, Crystal Dingott and the rest of the team from the Girl Scouts Cactus-Pine Council that helped make this weekend workshop a success! The program was supported by a grant from Freeport McMoRan.
The CAVIAT bioscience students from Williams High School toured TGen North on April 6th. Teacher Michael Lee brought the class to the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Flagstaff to learn about the research projects being done there and to tour the state-of-the-art research facilities. TGen North and CAVIAT are key partners in a 3-year grant awarded to the Center for Science Teaching and Learning at NAU from the National Science Foundation. This project will test a model of community engagement in an innovative problem-based high school bioscience course. Other partners are North Country Health Care, the Northern Arizona Area Health Education Center, the Coconino County Health Department, and the Winslow Indian Care Center. You can read more about the iCREATE Project and how YOU can be a part of this initiative here.
NAU Undergraduate Erik Lemkuhl (below) describes his work to the students. Erik began at TGen in the prestigious Helios Scholars internship program last summer, and was so successful that TGen North hired him as a paid intern. Erik primarily works on Tuberculosis. Congratulations to Erik as he begins his doctoral work at the University of Arizona next semester. Below, Mike explains the flow cell from the Illumina MiSeq sequencers. The flow cell contains the DNA libraries (samples) that TGen North is interested in sequencing. He also showed them the small USB-like sequencer called the Oxford Nanopore MinION. The technological advances since the Human Genome Project (1990-2003) are staggering, and the costs per sequence, time needed for each sequence, and sizes of the sequencers have all decreased dramatically. Several of the students in the class are applying summer experiences, including a Health Camp. If you are in a health or bioscience profession and would be willing to have a student shadow you at your job or do an internship, please contact the STEM Coordinator.
Two STEM City Stars have received their advanced degrees from NAU. Sarah Burcher earned her Master's degree on April 20th and Aaron Tabor received his Doctorate on April 27th. Congratulations!
Aaron worked with Dr. Rob Kellar in both the NAU Tissue Engineering & Regenerative (TERM) Lab as well as at Development Engineering Sciences. His dissertation research was on using plate-rich-plasma on an electrospun collagen scaffold to aid in full thickness wound healing. Aaron also serves as an instructor at both Coconino Community College and Northern Arizona University! You can read more about Sarah's and Aaron's contributions to STEM City and Killip Elementary School in this post from just over a year ago!
The first CAVIAT bioscience class to participate in the iCREATE project is from Williams High School. CAVIAT instructor and science educator Michael Lee (center photo) brought his students to NAU to tour three different laboratories on February 26th. The students met in NAU's Wettaw building and toured the Imaging and Histology Core Facility (IHCF) with the Lab's Assistant Director Aubrey Funke (bottom left photo). Insects coated with gold (top center photo) are visualized with the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to see clear magnifications as small as 1/50th the width of a human hair! The students also saw the Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and were able to use the Keyence Digital Microscope (photos left center and bottom right). Dr. Nathan Nieto (right side, second photo down) showed the students his lab and the equipment they use to study the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases in wild animals. They also study how this translates into transmission of disease to humans, domestic animals, and wildlife. They use a mixture of microbiology, molecular biology, phylogenetics and population ecology to investigate infectious disease dynamics in wild animal populations. Much of their work is conducted on reservoirs or the identification of reservoir hosts. You can learn more by linking to Dr. Nieto's lab page here. Dr. Robert Kellar (upper right photo) runs the Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine (TERM) Laboratory in the Center for Bioengineering Innovation at NAU. He is also the founder and president of Development Engineering Systems housed at the Northern Arizona Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (NACET) in Flagstaff. (www.des-company.com). His undergraduate, Masters, PhD, and Post Doctoral team were all available to showcase different aspects of bioengineering science. The three-hour tour was immensely engaging and educational. Thank you all! The iCREATE partnerships include NAU, TGen North, Coconino County Health Department, North Country Health Care, Northern Arizona Healthcare, and more! Note: iCREATE wants you! Read more about the project here and if you are interested in partnering to provide increased opportunities for our talented youth in any bioscience field, please contact the STEM Coordinator! iCREATE is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
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