Florida Atlantic University partnered with several high schools in the School District of Palm Beach County through a GK-12 program funded by the National Science Foundation. One of the goals of this project was to investigate the potential impact of this program on the ability of graduate students to communicate scientific research to a broad audience. STEM graduate students brought their research expertise into high school Chemistry, Biotechnology and Environmental Science classes. They worked in collaboration with teachers to implement a variety of curricular materials including hands-on activities, demonstrations and laboratory experiments. They also gave presentations about their ongoing research, which were videotaped before, during and after their 1-2 year participation in the program. The videos were reviewed by independent, trained evaluators according to a standardized communications rubric. Preliminary analysis of the results indicates significant improvement in the graduate students’ communication skills during their participation in the program. The details of this study and resulting conclusions will be presented.

Impact of a university-secondary school partnership on the communication skills of STEM graduate students

251st National Meeting (2016)

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