The National Science Foundation-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site hosted by the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS) trained 8 rising sophomore, junior, and senior-level undergraduates per summer through a 12-week, intensive program focused on scientific development through the execution of research, professional development, and outreach activities. To foster a community-centric appreciation for the role of STEM-field professionals in modern society, as well as to demonstrate the challenges associated with recruiting underrepresented populations to STEM-fields, a unique outreach activity was designed, entitled: <i>“Outreach Across the STEM-enthusiasm Divide.”</i> REU participants working in teams of two were tasked with creating a brief (5 minute) slideshow explaining the motivation behind their REU research project, as well as detail one experimental technique used to address their central hypothesis. Additionally, teams were asked to develop a scientific demo to visually demonstrate an aspect of their research project in real-time. Presentations were designed with a Middle School audience in mind, and REU-program organizers played an active role in helping participants develop their presentations. Each team presented its presentation twice to two unique audiences: 1) High School and Middle School students attending a STEM-related summer camp at UCCS, and 2) High School students enrolled in a summer-session chemistry course due to poor performance during the academic year. As expected, the REU students noted a stark contrast between the enthusiasm levels of elective summer camp audience and the obliged summer classroom audience. The outreach activity concluded with a roundtable discussion of the general importance of outreach programming, the need for scientists to actively seek outreach opportunities, and the challenges of recruiting students to STEM fields who lack strong STEM-education support networks. In addition to instilling an appreciation for community outreach within students beginning to self-identify as scientists (REU participants), this program exposed middle school and high school students to chemistry research at the university level, as well as provided an opportunity for those students to interact with and ask questions of STEM-majors who recently made the transition from high school to college.

Outreach as an essential element of research training: Exposing REU participants to the divide in STEM-field enthusiasm

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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