Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:The ROSS program involves two public high schools (HSs), representing urban and rural student populations. Participants from Waterville-Elysian-Morristown (WEM) Public School in Minnesota included 60 students and their teacher- Mike Richards. Participants from Rock Bridge High School (RBHS) in Missouri included 15 students and their teacher- Greg Kirchhofer. Our efforts included delivering science-based knowledge to high school environmental science classes through educational videos, formal classroom instruction, field and laboratory instruction, and practicum experiences through weekly sampling. In order to provide these experiences, we developed curriculum and innovative teaching methodologies including flipped classrooms wherein we provided a "behind the scenes" training video to the ROSS high school students (https://sites.google.com/view/limnologylab-northmizzou/about) and then spent the classroom time engaging them in experiential learning opportunities about environmental science and lake ecology. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In addition to training the high school students, one undergraduate student was also hired to sample Bethel Lake during the summer and analyze the samples in the water chemistry lab. Also, two WEM high school students volunteered to collect water samples during summer, helping to have a year round monitoring data. Additional professional development activities include the attendance of the graduate student supported by this project at three scientific conferences (GLEON, AWRA,and SNR research day) that have increased her knowledge-base and provided networking opportunities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The student-collected data is provided to the students and they examine it together with the graduate student (Zohreh Mazaheri Kouhanestani) supported by this project. We provided a quality control report to show how well the accuracy and precision have been improved in the student-collected data. This helps us to review the possible source of errors in sample collection and processing. This exercise provides an opportunity for students to interpret the results of their lake water quality monitoring efforts. We also presented the project and preliminary evaluation results at the USDA NIFA K-14 Education Program Project Directors Meeting in Kansas City, MO on April 4th 2024. Dr. Fischer presented the project and preliminary evaluation results at the Conference For Advancing Participatory Sciences on June 6th 2024. The presentation titled: "Increasing High School Student's Data Literacy Through Participatory Science Programs" compared two citizen science programs focused on engaging high school students and provided recommendations for project practitioners to improve the student outcomes of their projects. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The PhD student- Zohreh Mazaheri Kouhanestani- is planning for her comprehensive exam. She will continue training new students at both high schools for the next school year. We submitted an abstract to present at the American Geophysical Union Conference, the proposed talk is titled: "Reservoir Observer Student Scientists: place-based participatory science to engage high school students in monitoring their local water bodies." We plan to revise our pre and post surveys to more accurately and rigorously assess student's data literacy. We have evidence that students become more knowledgeable about limnology through the project, and their skills for doing science increase; however, we want to also assess how the program impacts their data literacy skills through the two data activities they engaged in during the program. We will add new questions to the surveys and the data activities. Findings from this work will result in a publication next year.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Major activities completed/experiments conducted The inaugural lecture, "Introduction to Limnology," provides students with a foundational understanding of limnology, elucidating its core research domains. Basic limnological concepts, including lake thermal stratification, are taught through a multimedia approach, integrating figures and educational videos. The subsequent session, "Introduction to the ROSS Program: Aims and Activities," provides high school students with the educational objectives of the ROSS program and describes the activities through which these goals are achieved. Our first in-field training session, conducted at the beginning of the school year, provides students with information about the practical aspects of collecting water samples and executing the filtration process. A schematic flyer is provided to elucidate the water filtration procedure. In the third lecture, "Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC)," we introduce essential concepts such as precision vs. accuracy, quality assurance vs. quality control, error source identification, and the use of statistical indices to assess data accuracy and precision in water quality measurement. This lecture emphasizes a laboratory-centric approach aimed at achieving heightened accuracy and precision in data collection. The final two lectures, held online, focus on data analysis. The first lecture provides an introduction on the international system of units (SI) and a practical training on unit conversion, regression analysis, and the coefficient of variation. The following lecture, "Data and Donuts," teaches students techniques they learned using the data they collected throughout the school year. Additionally, students learn about the EPA advisory levels for cyanotoxin concentrations for drinking and recreational purposes, and the implications for public health. We report the water quality parameters and cyanotoxin concentrations they helped to collect, asking students to interpret the data using EPA advisory levels. Data collected The data includes 35 weekly water samples from Sakatah Lake and 23 weekly water samples from Bethel Lake. All samples were collected from the nearby shoreline stations which were within walking distance from the high schools. All the samples were transferred to the MU Limnology Lab for further analyses. Common water quality parameters were assessed including total nitrogen, total phosphorus, nitrate, ammonium, urea, chlorophyll-a, phycocyanin, and total suspended solids. In addition, two cyanotoxins including microcystin and cylindrospermopsin were analyzed. In order to evaluate the data collected by the high school students and determine its reliability for advancing our knowledge of water quality issues year-round, we conducted "side-by-side" samplings from the same shoreline stations seasonally and assessed the same water quality parameters in MU Limnology Lab (see products). Summary of statistics and discussion of results We collected evidence for how it improved the student's science identity and marketability in the future work force through surveys where we used a single item science identity measure developed and tested by MacDonald et al (2019). Students responded to this question the first day of this program and the last day. The answer choices are displayed as a venn diagram with one circle labeled as "me" and the other labeled as "water scientist" (the original measure used the term STEM professional). A limitation of STEM PIO is that it excludes those who may be generally interested in STEM but not are interested in pursuing it professionally, which the results from other survey questions indicate that many of the ROSS students do not intend to pursue STEM professionally. However, this measure is appropriate for the evaluation of this program because one of the goals is to promote limnology and water science as a career. The average change of responses is 1.5 (meaning the students overall increased their identification by 1.5 points (on a scale of 0-8). In the pre-survey 17 students chose option a. (no overlap between themselves and a water scientist) in the post-survey 9 students chose this option). Eight more students choose options d and e, which indicate some overlap. A key component of the Ross program is connecting students to their local reservoir by having them personally sample the lake and prepare water quality samples. Students are also exposed to the results of the water quality analysis through two data-related activities. The place-based hands-on nature of the program provides students with a unique experience of assessing the health of their local reservoirs. In the post-survey, students were asked to describe the most exciting parts of the program (n=16). Collecting water samples (n=10) and seeing the results of the analysis of these samples (n=5) was the most exciting component of the program for students.? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qSTHBJa0Tpc7Kuc_l5-n6f7XBO3w2tVH/edit

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2024 Citation: Mazaheri Kouhanestani, Z., Price, AM., North, RL. 2024. Year-round water quality and cyanotoxin dynamics in a dimictic versus warm monomictic water body; Climate change implications. Poster presented at the Virtual All Hands on Meeting GLEON, GatherTown, USA, April 8-12, 2023.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2024 Citation: Zohreh Mazaheri Kouhanestani, Fischer, H.A., North, R.L. 2024. Reliability and learning outcomes of Reservoir Observer Student Scientists (ROSS) in monitoring water quality and cyanobacteria blooms. Poster will be presented at the American Water Resources Association (AWRA), St. Louis, MO, USA, September 30 - October 2, 2024.

Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:The ROSS program involves two public HSs, representing urban and rural student populations. Participants from Waterville-Elysian-Morristown (WEM) Public School in Minnesota included 60 students and their teacher- Mike Richards. Participants from Rock Bridge High School (RBHS) in Missouri included 15 students and their teacher- Greg Kirchhofer. Our efforts included delivering science-based knowledge to high school environmental science classes through educational videos, formal classroom instruction, field and laboratory instruction, and practicum experiences through weekly sampling. In order to provide these experiences, we developed curriculum and innovative teaching methodologies including flipped classrooms wherein we provided a "behind the scenes" training video to the ROSS high school students (https://sites.google.com/view/limnologylab-northmizzou/about) and then spent the classroom time engaging them in experiential learning opportunities about environmental science and lake ecology. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In addition to training the high school students, two undergraduate students were also hired to sample the study lakes during the summer and analyze the samples in the water chemistry lab. One of these students presented a poster comparing the student-collected samples with those collected by Mizzou graduate students and staff (see products). Additional professional development activities include the attendance of the graduate student supported by this project at three scientific conferences that has increased her knowledge-base and provided networking opportunities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The student-collected data is provided to the students and they examine it together with the graduate student (Zohreh Mazaheri Kouhanestani) supported by this project. We provided a quality control report to show how well the accuracy and precision have been improved in the student-collected data. This helps us to review the possible source of errors in sample collection and processing. This exercise provides an opportunity for students to interpret the results of their lake water quality monitoring efforts. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The PhD student- Zohreh Mazaheri Kouhanestani- successfully passed her qualifying exam. She will continue training new students at both high schools for the next school year. She has already provided the whole year of sampling supplies for both schools.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Major activities completed/experiments conducted The inaugural lecture, "Introduction to Limnology," provides students with a foundational understanding of limnology, elucidating its core research domains. Basic limnological concepts, including lake thermal stratification, are taught through a multimedia approach, integrating figures and educational videos. The subsequent session, "Introduction to the ROSS Program: Aims and Activities," provides high school students with the educational objectives of the ROSS programs and describes the activities through which these goals are achieved. Our first in-field training session, conducted at the beginning of the school year, provides students with information about the practical aspects of collecting water samples and executing the filtration process. A schematic flyer is provided to elucidate the water filtration procedure. The third lecture, "Winter Limnology," delves into the significance of year-round monitoring of water quality and phytoplankton communities, with an emphasis on the winter season. Students engage in the exploration and discussion of a recent publication on cold water cyanobacteria blooms titled "Blooms also like it cold," with the intent of emphasizing the vital importance of comprehensive, year-round lake observation. Subsequently, students engage in the second in-field training session during the winter season, wherein they acquire the knowledge necessary to undertake sample collection and water quality profiling in ice covered lake conditions. To culminate this comprehensive program, students partake in a Zoom-recorded lecture on "Quality Assurance and Quality Control in Water Sciences." This lecture introduces essential concepts, encompassing accuracy and precision in data, the identification of error sources, and the application of statistical indices to assess data accuracy and precision. A laboratory-centric approach is emphasized, aimed at achieving heightened accuracy and precision in data collection. The final lecture, "Data and Donuts," offers students practical exposure to data analysis techniques, including linear regression, facilitated using Google Sheets. Data collected The data includes 34 weekly water samples from Sakatah Lake and 26 weekly water samples from Bethel Lake. All samples were collected from the nearby shoreline stations which were within walking distance from the high schools. All the samples were transferred to the MU Limnology Lab for further analyses. Common water quality parameters were assessed including total nitrogen, total phosphorus, nitrate, ammonium, urea, chlorophyll-a, phycocyanin, and total suspended solids. In addition, two cyanotoxins including microcystin and cylindrospermopsin were analyzed. In order to evaluate the data collected by the high school students and determine its reliability for advancing our knowledge of water quality issues year-round, we conducted "side-by-side" samplings from the same shoreline stations seasonally and assessed the same water quality parameters in MU Limnology Lab. This data was summarized by an undergraduate researcher in a poster presentation (see products). Summary of statistics and discussion of results We collected evidence for how it improved the student's science identity and marketability in the future work force through surveys where we used a single item science identity measure developed and tested by MacDonald et al (2019). Students responded to this question the first day of this program and the last day. The answer choices are displayed as a venn diagram with one circle labeled as "me" and the other labeled as "water scientist" (the original measure used the term STEM professional). In the pre survey, 26 of 34 students selected the two choices that show the circles with no overlap. In the post survey, the students shift their responses toward more overlap between themselves and water scientists.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Gerritson*, M., Mazaheri Kouhanestani*, Z., Kinzinger*, E., North, R.L. Assessing the reliability of community science data collected by Reservoir Observer Student Scientists (ROSS). Poster presented at the Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS) Annual Conference, Des Moines, Iowa, USA, 2023.