Session CM10: Mini-Conference: Workforce Development Through Research-Based, Plasma-Focused Science Education and Public Engagement I

Motivating Teachers and Students to Learn Plasma Physics via Engaging Activities

Informal science education activities (ISEA) have long played an essential role in helping create and recruit the next generation of scientists. Researchers not having constraints from the curriculum, textbooks, and tests have a freedom that allows creative and culturally relevant learning experiences of science. This freedom can present opportunities for engagement by presenting key concepts to the K-12 teachers and students and communicating exciting results from the researcher's work allowing K-12 teachers and students to have more access to science. The audience is the focus of this presentation, which is one of the four stakeholders that benefit from ISEAs – the audiences, the researchers, the institutions, and the field of plasma physics. This presentation will demonstrate the use of the two-way interactive method to bring science "alive," spark interest and stimulate curiosity.   

Promoting BIPOC and Marginalized Students to Pursue Computational Physics through CRANE

The growth of the nuclear fusion industry and programs in the past few years has shown a need for increasing support for young people to join this developing workforce. However, the lack of diversity within the plasma physics community has always been detrimental to encouraging underrepresented, marginalized and students of color to join the field of plasma physics. Although the worst of the COVID19 pandemic is over, the long term effects (medical and economic) have disproportionately affected marginalized communities and create an even larger barrier to joining this specific field. 

The Computational Research Access Network (CRANE) was formed to address these issues. CRANE is a group of graduate students, postdocs, and professionals from marginalized communities. CRANE’s goals are to introduce underrepresented students to physics (specifically plasma and nuclear) at early stages, teach the computational tools needed to succeed in both computational and experimental research, and to provide them with opportunities in the form of internships or undergraduate research positions. In addition, CRANE’s diverse group members work at removing the barriers of entry into plasma and nuclear physics such as: representation, role models, mentorship, and encouraging culture. 

In this talk, we will present learning outcomes from the inaugural CRANE workshops and best practices for plasma physics education that centers equity and inclusion.   

Author not Attending

K-12 science courses typically address states of matter, but while the Next Generation Science Standards refer to fusion, plasmas are not explicitly mentioned. The mission of the Contemporary Physics Education Project membership of active scientists and practicing teachers is to convey current knowledge of physics topics using scientifically accurate, visually stimulating materials and activities adaptable to many age levels. CPEP's focus topics are particle, cosmological, gravitational, nuclear, and plasma/fusion physics. CPEP shares their Plasma and Fusion materials at the APS-DPP Teacher's Day with a Hand's-On Fusion and Plasma Activities for the Classroom workshop and presentations at the Student Expo. This session will overview our plasma-related educational activities related to our Plasma & Fusion chart and discuss how they can be implemented in middle and high school classrooms to teach plasma physics. 

    

STEM Education Programs Targeted for Rural Areas

Research studies of persistence in STEM after engagement of youth in STEM activities have demonstrated that long-term, sustained programs have the most significant impact on future persistence in STEM. For example, compared to a baseline peer group with the same socio-economic and educational backgrounds, students who participate in a FIRST Robotics program are 50% more likely to attend college, twice as likely to major in science or engineering in college, and four times as likely to end up in an engineering career. Therefore, my focus in rural West Virginia has been to develop, long-term, sustainable, hands-on, engineering focused STEM programs through schools, scouting organizations, 4-H, and direct parental engagement. I will describe the origins of our program, its growth over the past fifteen years, our funding model (hint, direct federal agency support is not sustainable), and the current state of the program. Since 2008, 100% of our local (in our county and three surrounding counties) program graduates have gone on to postsecondary education (98% to college), nearly all on some sort of full or partial tuition scholarship. 83% have gone on to undergraduate programs in science or engineering. Of those that have gone on to undergraduate programs in science or engineering, over 40% are female or from other underrepresented groups in STEM careers.

    

Establishing Community through Mentorship in Physical Sciences

Despite many longstanding efforts, representation of numerous demographics in plasma physics in particular and physical sciences as a whole lags behind higher education in general. While many programs focus on the development of the student to address perceived gaps in ability and performance, we instead developed programs in which the primary focus is establishing community and relevance to the student. We present a variety of modes of student engagement, including near peer and peer mentorship, culturally relevant research experiences, and workshops enabling personal growth and wellness.   

Using an inertial confinement fusion device as an introduction to plasma physics and laboratory research technique for high school age students interested in a career in nuclear science.

For over twelve years Mr. Carl Greninger has pioneered a private nonprofit helping high school students win over $800,000.00 in scholarships through an educational program that looks more like a company than a classroom. The students achieve experiential technical prowess by growing a Farnsworth fusor into a cutting-edge fusion research device with a unique plasma electrode design offering 2 X10^6 neutron output, which is a remarkable achievement in DD fusion within the ranks of amateurs. The device is then leveraged for oncology, material science, and plasma physics investigations. Most recently the telemetry has seen serious development including a Langmuir probe, AZURE Power BI and touch screen reactor control. But it is the PM role-based student led engagement that drives the educational experience, as the student researcher quickly realizes that science at this level demands skills far beyond a Langmuir probe. They must become an accountant, publicist, advocate, stakeholder, manager, and technologist akin to a Swiss army knife. The value of this skill set becomes obviousin R&D companies where research dollars are hard to come by, and the rate of technical evolution gives technical knowledge a measurable half-life and drives learning technique into new paradigms.   

Career impacts on university student volunteers in informal physics programs

Informal physics programs create learning environments where physicists, physics students, and public audiences can interact with each other. The formats of these spaces vary considerably with examples including summer camps, public lectures, open houses, and demonstration shows. Participation in informal physics spaces can be impactful for both the public audiences and the program facilitators. With our qualitative research study, we investigate the career paths of university students who volunteered in informal physics programs. We hypothesized that participation in informal programs provided impactful experiences that influenced student volunteers' career paths. We interviewed alumni who had volunteered in informal physics programs as students about their career pathways and experiences. We analyzed the data for common themes to better understand the commonalities in experiences for volunteers more broadly. The resulting themes could be of use to informal physics practitioners in better understanding and improving their own programs to support their student volunteers.   

Brainstorming Session: Plasma-focused activities and impact assessment for K-12

Multiple reports on the status of plasma science and engineering in the US have recognized the need for outreach programs at all educational levels, emphasizing the need for improved pre-college education and public engagement. The recent NAS decadal assessment of plasma science found that plasma-specific educational and research programs that also provide opportunities to diverse and less advantaged populations are needed to ensure a critically populated plasma science and engineering workforce. In this discussion session, we invite the DPP attendees to share experiences and lessons learned from involvement in K-12 science education and plasma-focused activities in the classroom. Questions of interest include: (i) adapting trusted STEM strategies to plasma-specific activities, (ii) supporting the needs of K-12 educators, (iii) engaging students from less-developed areas and under-represented groups, (iv) conducting coordinated impact-assessment across programs, and (v) storing and exchanging impact assessment data. The ideas considered in this discussion session will be summarized and made available to the DPP community.