Strengthening the Broader Impacts of Your Science and Teaching Through SERC
Tuesday
1:30pm-4:00pm
Poster Session Part of
Tuesday Poster Session
Authors
Ellen Iverson, Carleton College
Kristin O'Connell, Carleton College
Kerry Vachta, Carleton College
Sean Fox, Carleton College
John McDaris, Carleton College
Demonstrating the societal benefits of science to advance economic competitiveness, a strong STEM workforce, and public scientific literacy has become critical to sustained funding. Beyond generating knowledge, federal funding demands research that translates to shifts in practice, policy, and innovation. The Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College facilitates strategies that advance broader impacts through the development of teaching activities on an enduring website, assessment of STEM workforce activities, and as the external evaluator for the NSF-funded Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS).
SERC hosts over 100 Earth education websites that include courses, syllabi, and teaching, lab, and field activities. Some projects, like the TIDeS: Teaching Investigation and Design in Science project, advance evidence-based practices that have been extensively piloted and assessed. Other smaller collections, extend the societal impact of field research, such as lab exercises on ultra-high pressure metamorphic rocks, developed through studies of rates and mechanisms of exhumation of UHP terranes. Projects such as Earthlabs, funded 2007-2016, remain of high use and value to the geoscience education community into the present, increasing broader impacts to the future workforce for decades beyond their funding.
Assessing broader impacts reveals the value of the investment in science. The Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH) uses an integrated research approach to study and respond to coastal climate hazards. As the external evaluator for MACH, SERC evaluators document the insights gained by students and the public to MACH documentary films, assess the skills that early career researchers are gaining in leadership, co-production, and research translation, and characterize the reach of MACH program activities on two-year college faculty and students. Finally, as the evaluator for ARIS, SERC evaluators validated the Broader Impacts (BI) rubric as well as assessed an online toolkit designed to help all researchers strengthen their impact.
SERC hosts over 100 Earth education websites that include courses, syllabi, and teaching, lab, and field activities. Some projects, like the TIDeS: Teaching Investigation and Design in Science project, advance evidence-based practices that have been extensively piloted and assessed. Other smaller collections, extend the societal impact of field research, such as lab exercises on ultra-high pressure metamorphic rocks, developed through studies of rates and mechanisms of exhumation of UHP terranes. Projects such as Earthlabs, funded 2007-2016, remain of high use and value to the geoscience education community into the present, increasing broader impacts to the future workforce for decades beyond their funding.
Assessing broader impacts reveals the value of the investment in science. The Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH) uses an integrated research approach to study and respond to coastal climate hazards. As the external evaluator for MACH, SERC evaluators document the insights gained by students and the public to MACH documentary films, assess the skills that early career researchers are gaining in leadership, co-production, and research translation, and characterize the reach of MACH program activities on two-year college faculty and students. Finally, as the evaluator for ARIS, SERC evaluators validated the Broader Impacts (BI) rubric as well as assessed an online toolkit designed to help all researchers strengthen their impact.