Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s STEM Center contributed various poster presentations to the 113th annual meeting of the Illinois State Academy of Science this April. Poster’s highlighted the STEM Center’s work and research with pollutant monitoring and environmental education research.
STEM Center graduate research assistant, Josh Gifford, presented his research on investigations between the connection of noise and air pollution with levels and 1) socioeconomic status, and 2) distance from the St. Louis City Center. He used data spanning from June 2020 to September 2021 from the STEM Center’s environmental monitoring network. These data allow him to look at various measures of pollutant exposure to the people living in the St. Louis Metropolitan area and also distributions of pollutants throughout the region. These data are also accessible to all YCITYSCI students participating in the program. Through the program, students use these data to explore research questions related to noise and air pollution, as well as to learn data analyses, data visualization, and data management. Doing so, students in the program gain an understanding of environmental concepts and research skills. Further, they are taking steps to perform authentic scientific research, which in turn, builds their identity as scientists.
In fact, one question we are trying to answer as students participate in the YCITYSCI program is: how does participation in authentic science help students form their identity as scientists? In the YCITYSCI program, we are working with students to help address this question. Research at the STEM Center explored science identity formation by interviewing scientists to see if their reflections on becoming and being a scientist align with a proposed model of science identity formation. Olivia Beckwith, STEM Center Noyce Scholar, presented this work. Through this research, the team found that many of the reflections of scientists align with the tested science identity formation model; however, scientists often recall other aspects of their journey into science that they felt were essential, such as strong mentoring experiences.
The Illinois State Academy of Sciences awarded both posters with division prizes! Congratulations to Josh and Olivia, as well as the YCITYSCI team, for helping to contribute to such outstanding scholarship!
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