Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science: A Summer Program Designed to Address Systemic Inequities and Barriers to STEM Pathways

Abstract

Educational inequity is widely prevalent in United States (U.S.) public schools and creates barriers to STEM education for underserved and underrepresented populations, including racial minority, low-income, and first-generation college students. Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) recognized a need in its community, the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area, to improve access to high-quality STEM education, and founded the WRAIR Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science (GEMS) program for this purpose. In pursuit of this goal, the GEMS program engages students using innovative learning strategies and authentic STEM experiences with the hopes of fostering interest in STEM and motivating more underserved and underrepresented students to persist in STEM education and career pathways. By 1995, WRAIR scientists began investigating how to bring science-enthusiastic but novice high school (HS) students into their laboratories where they could be mentored, along with providing a stipend to mitigate financial barriers; importantly, this process was funded by two Science Education Partnership Awards from 2001-2006. Each year, WRAIR's GEMS program now guides about 600-700 local middle and HS students to take part in hands-on, inquiry-based STEM laboratory investigations led by undergraduate "near peer mentors" (NPMs), so named due to their close age to participants. GEMS is now sustained at 14 sites nationwide through the U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program, and serve about 4,000 students and near-peer mentors annually. Recent evaluations of the program explore service to underrepresented groups in STEM and growth of the local program. Further evaluation of the nationwide programs reveals positive student feedback, especially regarding working with NPMs and hands-on learning.

Conversion of Summer STEM Program from In-Person to Virtual Learning Offers Unexpected Positives and Pitfalls

“…Student demographics remained similar across in-person and eGEMS (Figure 1A). In alignment with previous years (Brown et al, 2020), our demographic data revealed similar racial/ethnic make-up of the GEMS program versus surrounding counties. However, it also revealed underrepresentation among FARMS recipients and English language learners compared to local county public schools.…”

“…However, racial minorities, low-income, and first-generation students have been historically underrepresented in higher education science programs which are often a prerequisite for high paying jobs in STEM-related fields (Curiale, 2010). Recognizing an opportunity to improve upon STEM education efforts, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), with the support of various funding mechanisms, created the Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science (GEMS) program for rising 7th-12th grade students from Washington, DC and the surrounding suburban areas (Brown et al, 2020), with a focus on equality of access to students whom the Army Education Outreach Program, AEOP, has identified as "twice underrepresented" or "U2" (USAEOP, 2020). U2 students are those who self-identify with two or more of the following: racial or ethnic minorities historically underrepresented in STEM, students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals, female students in certain STEM fields, students who receive special education services, students with disabilities, aspiring first-generation college students, students in rural, frontier, or other federally targeted outreach schools, and students for whom English is not their primary language at home (USAEOP, 2020).…”

“…Since its inception in the mid1990s, WRAIR GEMS has grown to provide STEM programming for over 500 students from a variety of backgrounds every summer. After participating in the GEMS program, students report positive attitudes towards STEM (Brown et al, 2020). Furthermore, the success of the WRAIR GEMS program has led to the GEMS program being implemented and sustained at 17 sites nationwide through the U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program.…”

“…The conversion of the WRAIR GEMS program to eGEMS not only had to provide science enrichment activities to students, but also maintain the standards and outcomes of the original in-person program. These outcomes include the promotion of positive science attitudes among GEMS participants, high recruitment of U2 students, and professional development for our NPM participants (Tenenbaum et al, 2017;Anderson et al, 2019;Brown et al, 2020). However, the switch from an in-person experience to an online format presents many challenges towards student participation and engagement (Zhang, 2005).…”

Exploring the Impact of a Spanish Language STEM Outreach Program on Participants, Families, and Mentors

“…Before young people make their final career decisions that either include STEM choices or avoid STEM choices, it is essential to reach these young people with positive experiences in STEM. Out-of-school time STEM outreach programs for elementary and middle school children have proven successful in increasing interest in and attitude towards STEM activities and STEM careers (Ching et al, 2019;Higde and Aktamis, 2022;Timur et al, 2019), including those outreach programs explicitly targeted at underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities audiences (Brown et al, 2020;Hayden et al, 2011;Roncoroni et al, 2021) and females (Christensen and Knezek, 2017). STEM outreach programs for high school students have been linked to changes in participants' education and career choices (Bindis, 2019) as well as attitude changes (Vennix et al, 2018).…”