Recipient Organization
UNIVERSIDAD INTERAMERICANA DE PUERTO RICO, INC.
399 GALILEO ST URB JARDINES METROPOLITANOS
SAN JUAN,PR 009274517
Performing Department
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Non Technical Summary
Encouraging our youth to pursue careers in the STEM fields has been viewed as crucial in recent years to meeting humanity's needs, both nationally and globally. Inter American University of Puerto Rico -Fajardo Campus (IAUPR-FC) proposes the need to motivate our future workforce, especially women and underrepresented minority students from the rural area of Puerto Rico, particularly in agriculture. The IAUPR-FC WAMS project will offer these students several activities to increase their motivation and awareness for STEM careers. Career awareness, professional development, and leadership skills will be enhanced through participation in role model seminars, professional development training, networking opportunities, and summer research experiences focused on agriculture. The project will impact 60 high school students. The expected outcomes are: 1) Increase students' awareness of STEM Careers and 2) Increase the enrollment of women and underrepresented minorities from rural areas in STEM-related degrees. Women and underrepresented minorities participating in IAUPR-FC WAMS should graduate from high school with increased confidence as a professional and be prepared to pursue studies in STEM areas. Moreover, these students will have the necessary knowledge and hands-on expertise to maximize agricultural production and implement industrial testing and processing procedures.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
0%
Goals / Objectives
The main goal of IAUPR-FC-WAMS is to enhance IAUPR-FC ability to attract women and underrepresented high school students from rural areas that are interested in the agriculture related STEM disciplines. The following objectives are proposed to establish
Project Methods
The Science and Technology Department Academic plan identifies the need to increase recruitment of students, as well as the need to provide high schools students with experiences and complementary activities that will allow them to develop soft skills in the seven clusters identified in the Comparative Analysis of Soft Skills: What is Important for New Graduates? (Crawford, P. et al., 2011). These are experience, team skills; communication skills; leadership skills; decision making/problem-solving skills; self-management skills, and professionalism skills.The Department Director and Faculty identified and called upon stakeholders and resources at IAUPR-FC in order to collaborate in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the proposed Project. The Recruitment effortsforthe program will have a two-pronged approach: 1) the Office for Promotions and Recruitment will promote the program during school visits and other recruitment activities, and 2) visits IAUPR-FC including the Department of Science and Technology.Two schools of the east region of Puerto Rico will be selected to implement the project. During the first year, 30 (24 women) students of the tenth and ninth grade will be selected from each school. Upon entering the program, students will form a cohort of 30 students and remain in the cohort thought the program. The IAUPR-FC WAMS program will implement a cohort model to facilitate learning, promote community and foster a STEM identity. Participation in small leaning communities has demonstrated success in improving STEM student retention and academic success (Shapiro and Levine 2000).These students will participate in various workshops during the three years of the project. In the first year, the seminars will be focused on STEM role models (see Figure 1). Speakers will share the challenges they faced and overcame, what they like most about their jobs, and the many opportunities available for young people interested in STEM. Second- and third-year seminars will include several topics on agriculture, global warming, and garnering allotments.During the second and third years, the students will also participate in a summer camp in the institution. On the first camp, the students will have the opportunity to develop an allotment gardening in the university and research the nutritional value of food (see figure 2). The objective of the research to be developed by the student is to compare the nutritional value of food coming from the allotment gardening and the supermarket. The nutritional value will be evaluated with a Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (Hotea et al 2021). With this technology, the students could evaluate the food's moisture, dry matter, ash, crude protein, and fiber. Also, in this first camp, the students will be preparing compost from algae to evaluate the growth rate of the allotment gardening plants. In the second summer camp (see figure 3), students will have the opportunity to develop a business plan. Allotment gardening is an opportunity to achieve a small business. In the allotment garden, the students could grow aromatic plants that can be used to develop soap. Also, it can grow plants to make a Puerto Rican "sofrito" an essential ingredient for many recipes. Not many scientists have the preparation in the business area, but in this summer camp, the students will have the opportunity to see how vitascience in business is.To support these two camps, we will develop two small allotment gardens. The "Undergraduate STEM Student" (USS) will be working on the plant seeding and allotment gardening maintenance during the semester. With the purpose to have one of the allotment gardens with plants to cultivate. The other allotment gardening will be able for high school students to go through the process of creating a seedbed and cultivating. Since summer camp is only three weeks, they will not see what they plant on the allotment gardening. The research project of the nutritional value of the culture will be developed with the allotment gardening that the USSs made during the semester.