Progress 01/01/24 to 12/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Audience group A: Students Objective 1: Recruitment and Retention. 67high school, 10WaTER cohort participants • Natural science awareness and literacy (67high school students) • Building a sustainable recruitment pipeline (17high school students, 5WaTER participants) • Strategies to improve retention of undergraduates (5 WaTER participants) Objective 2: Mentoring. 10 WaTER cohort participants, 10 university students • Construction of professional and academic identity: role models (5WaTER participants) • Establishing an innovative research network through a seminar series (4 WaTER participants, 4 university students) • Developing a career path through internship experience(s) (3 WaTER participants) Objective 3: Training and Research Experience. 5WaTER cohort participants • Undergraduate collaborative research experiences ( 5WaTER participants) • Participation in decision-making at the regional level that involve the food-water-energy nexus (1WaTER participants) Objective 4: Outreach. 50high school and middle school students, 4 WaTER cohort participants, 4 university students • Making science relevant to students & promoting a college-going culture (67high school and middle school students, 3 WaTER participants) • Professional leadership through campus-community involvement (4 WaTER participants, 4 university students) Audience group B: Faculty Objective 1: Recruitment and Retention. 3 • Natural science awareness and literacy (2 faculty) • Building a sustainable recruitment pipeline (2 faculty) • Strategies to improve retention of undergraduates (1 faculty) Objective 2: Mentoring. 2 • Construction of professional and academic identity: role models (1 faculty) • Establishing an innovative research network through a seminar series (2 faculty) • Developing a career path through internship experience(s) (1 faculty) Objective 3: Training and Research Experience. 4 • Undergraduate collaborative research experiences (3 faculty) • Participation in decision-making at the regional level that involves the food-water-energy nexus (1 faculty) Objective 4: Outreach. 3 • Making science relevant to students & promoting a college-going culture (2 faculty) • Professional leadership through campus-community involvement (1 faculty) Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to continue our effort building on Year 1 (planning and networking) and Year 2 (Outreaching, Education, and Research Experience). Specifically, we plan on replicating many of our programming we conducted in Year 2, particularly Teachers Workshop, Local School Visits, Spring Break Water Camp, Summer Intensive Reseach Experience, Water Resource Club Field Activities, and Fall Seminars. Objective 1: Recruitment and Retention We will host a two-day Water Resources Water Camp at the beginning of the spring break in 2025(March, 2025). The goal of this camp is to raise science awareness and literary training activities for students in the high and middle schools of Harlandale Independent School District (ISD), South San ISD, and San Antonio ISD. We expect to have slight larger turnout as we expand our reach to the local ISDs. In the first day of the two-day camp, students will participate in a regional water lecture in a university classroom, followed by hands-on water quality training in a laboratory. A certified Texas Stream Team instructor will offer the lecture and conduct a laboratory exercise. On the second day, we will have a field trip similar to the field workshop we conducted with the teachers. Students will learn to characterize the conditions of rivers and streams, and understand the water "system" in the local and regional area surrounding San Antonio. We will conduct pre- and post-surveys to determine improved awareness of natural science and literacy and interests among high school students to go to college. Notably, we experience very positive results with the help of our college students as volunteered mentor. We will continue to recruit college students to serve on the same role this year. Prior to recruiting events, we will work with the school teachers who participated in the workshop to conduct a 40-minute guest lecture about WaTER's activities and mentored research opportunities for the students . During these recruitment sessions, students will receive information regarding the natural science programs Texas A&M-San Antonio offers. Objective 2: Mentoring We will continue to provide mentoring opportunities for our college students in the program with local agencies such as San Antonion Water System, San Antonio River Authority, Edwards Aquifer Authority, Evergreen Underground Water Conservation District, Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, Cibolo Creek Municipal Authority, etc. These agencies and utility companies have historically provided our students with internship opportunities and assigned their technicals staff to mentor our students for independent study. We will continue leverage this connection to help prepare our students to be career ready once they graduate. Seminar has been a great success for our students, as in 2023 we invited speakers from primarily local agencies to build connection with our program and expose our students to these agencies. In 2024, our theme was to recruit students to participate in professional workshop (i.e., Hydro Geo Workshop), therefore our invited speakers were primarily experts in the field of hydrogeology sciences relevant to the context of the regional karst aquifer. In 2025, our theme would be watershed management responding to droughts and urbanization. We will invite 9-10 speakers in the fall semester and recruit students to participate. Objective 3: Training and Research Experience We continue to recruit college students to participate in undergraduate mentored research, by pairing them with graduate students conducting research relevant to water and soil management. We will leverage the launch of the Water Resources club to recruit participants in both training acitivites (such as the Core Standard Water Quality training and advanced training by the Texas Stream Team, the River Warriors program by the San Antonio River Authority, and the stream cleanup study with San Antonio River Aid). The target number of undergraduate students participating in mentored research is 5. We will also conduct another round of intensive summer research experience as we did in 2024. Four students participated and completed the 2024 summer research program, and we expect a similar number of participants (about 5) this summer. Objective 4: Outreach While this objective can be concurrently accomplished with Objective 1 activities, we plan to identify high school students participating in the two-day camp to work with TAMU-San Antonio undergraduate students in research projects. The results of their research projects can be showcased in public outreach events hosted by the San Antonio River Authority and/or the annual student research symposium hosted by TAMU-San Antonio.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. PD Dr. Den visited the science classes at McCollum High School on Leal Middle School on February 16 and McCollum High School on February 28. He was accompanied by one of his former students who graduated from Texas A&M San Antonio's Water Resources program in Fall 2023 and is an alumnus of McCollum High School. The purpose of the visit is to engage with middle school and high school students to introduce basic water quality monitoring and the importance of doing so, encourage them to join the upcoming Spring Break Water Camp that would be held in March, and to instill a college-going mindset to study natural sciences such as water resources. We engaged with 2 classes at Leal Middle School (~30 students in total) and 3 classes at McCollum High School (~50 students). The ability for us to connect directly with students was the result of our engagement effort with school teachers in the previous year when we held two workshops to recruit science teachers from the partnering school district (July 19, 2023 and another in November 4, 2023). Each class session was about 40 minutes, during which we were able to interact with the students by having them use simple devices to determine and compare the quality of different water samples. Most student expressed enthusiasm when they realized the power of scientific device and chemistry could reveal water quality that is not readily visible. 2. We held a two-day Spring Break Water Camp on March 11 and 12. A total of 17 students participated in the program, 15 of whom completed the full program on both days. Participants ranged from 6th grade to 12th grade. Three teachers, PDs, and three college students who volunteered to be the mentor for the camp also participated in the day's activities. Day 1 of the camp was spent on the campus of Texas A&M University-San Antonio, where students got to familiarize themselves with college campus setting through the "Scavenger Hunt" activity. This was followed by short lectures and video viewing to simulate college classroom setting, and then students toured the research labs of Water Resources (Dr. Den's lab) and Microbiology (Dr. Smyth's lab). Students were directly to develop their own project of interest and performed research guided by three college students. They would present their research findings in Day 2. Day 2 was the field day, where the group spent the whole day at the Medina River Natural Area administered by the San Antonio River Authority and the City's Parks and Recreation Department. Student spent the first half of the day continuing their project in an outdoor environment, using the site's water environment to support their findings. They presented their projects in 4 groups, each mentor by a college student mentor. Students then went through the water quality core standard training experience to determine water quality parameters such as pH, temperature, turbidity, dissolved solids, conductivity, and learned how to record the water environment conditions. The two-day program concluded with student filling out an assessment survey gauging what they took away from the program. The external evaluation report of the workshops is attached here. Notably, Dr. Pina, our external evaluator, visited us and personally joined Day 2's activity to observe the impact of our effort. 3. The project team continued to expand local school partnership by visiting South San High School, East Central High School, and San Antonio ISD (Estrada Achievement Center). We will be holding workshop following the same model that we developed in Year 1 of the project. The goals of the workshops are: (i) recruit teachers and share water-food-soil experiential learning teaching resources to enhance their teaching. (ii) build rapport with the teachers to support the project's objective of recruiting future students (Objective 1) and outreaching (Objective 4). Particularly, we plan to host a two-day water-soil-agriculture science camp targeting school children (8th-12th graders) during the start of the spring break in 2025 and 2026. At the time of the reporting, we already held a teachers workshop in February 2025. 4. Following the creation of the Water Resources Club in 2023 to bolster extracurricular learning experience for TAMU-San Antonio's undergraduate students (Objective 3: college students to participate in field research experiences). In the previous year (2023), students several participated in the two outings: the Rain-to-Drain program on April 22, 2023, hosted by the local water utility company, the San Antonio Water System (SAWS); and visiting the urban farm "Greenies" (operated by Texas A&M AgriLife Bexar County Extension Service) on June 21, 2023. to understand the connectivity between water, agriculture, and community health. In 2024, the highlight activity was to form a group visit to participate in the 9th Texas Hydro Geo Workshop held on October 4-6, 2024 at the Cave Without A Name. The Workshop was created to bring students, educators, practitioners together in a field setting as a hand-on learning experience. Participants get to explore techniques for collecting and analyzing soil, rock, and water media. The workshop is structured to allow participants to work with leading researchers and practitioners, particularly from the karst Edwards Aquifer that supply potable water for more than 2 million people in the Austin-San Antonio area in central Texas. Seven students from A&M-San Antonio participated in the workshop, all of whom are students in the Water Resources program, including the president of the Water Resources Club. Please see the report for the event. 5. We held an intensive, two-week summer research experience for undergraduate students in early to mid August, splitting between the Water Resources lab in Week 1 (Dr. Den's lab) and the Microbiology lab (Dr. Smyth's lab) in Week 2. We recruited 4 college students to participate in the research experience, all of whom successfully completed the full two-week experience. Week 1 (August 5-9): Water treatment lab Day 1: What is scientific research? Lab safety instructions. Prepare for Day 2-5. Introduction to each treatment process. Day 2-5: We have three processes to work with. Students have the opportunity to experience all three if time permits. They run prepared water samples and monitor the changes in water quality before and after treatment. Adsorption column tests Electrocoagulation tests Ultraviolet oxidation tests Week 2 (August 12-16): Microbiology lab DNA Isolation PCR - we'll do PCR for antibiotic resistance genes. QPCR - we'll do qPCR for viruses in water. Introduction to sequencing Final Day - putting it all together 6. We held 9 seminars during the Fall semester of 2024 between September 11 and December 4 to meet Objective 2. As compared to the speakers invited in 2023, this year's speakers featured hydrogeology scientists, including Mr. Geary Schindel, who chairs the organizing committee of the Hydro-Geo Workshop mentioned above. All seminars were conducted via Zoom, on Wednesday between 12:30-1:30 pm. The speaker list included: Mr. Geary Schindel - President of Karst Works, Inc. Dr. Eliot Atekwana, Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California-Davis. Dr. Vikram Kapoor, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Texas at San Antonio. Mr. Steven Seibert, Project Manager, Water Resources, San Antonio Water System. Mr. Mark Black, Retired Battalion Chief, San Antonio Fire Department Dr. Henry Agbogun, Assistant Professor of Geology, Fort Hays State University. Dr. Andrew katumwehe, Associate Professor Kimbell School of Geosciences, Midwestern State University Dr. Steven Opsahl, Hydrologist, Oklahoma-Texas Water Sci Center, U.S. GeologicSurvey (USGS). Dr. Todd Halihan, Professor and Chair, Hydrogeology, Oklahoma State University.
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Progress 01/01/23 to 12/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:Audience group A: Students Objective 1: Recruitment and Retention. 0 high school, 7 WaTER cohort participants Natural science awareness and literacy (0 high school students) Building a sustainable recruitment pipeline (0 high school students, 2 WaTER participants) Strategies to improve retention of undergraduates (5 WaTER participants) Objective 2: Mentoring. 10WaTER cohort participants, 10university students Construction of professional and academic identity: role models (3 WaTER participants) Establishing an innovative research network through a seminar series (4 WaTER participants, 4 university students) Developing a career path through internship experience(s) (3 WaTER participants) Objective 3: Training and Research Experience. 3WaTER cohort participants Undergraduate collaborative research experiences (3 WaTER participants) Participation in decision-making at the regional level that involve the food-water-energy nexus (4WaTER participants) Objective 4: Outreach. 0high school and middle school students, 4WaTER cohort participants, 4university students Making science relevant to students & promoting a college-going culture (0 high school and middle school students, 0 WaTER participants) Professional leadership through campus-community involvement (4WaTER participants, 4university students) Audience group B: Faculty Objective 1: Recruitment and Retention. 3 Natural science awareness and literacy (2 faculty) Building a sustainable recruitment pipeline (2faculty) Strategies to improve retention of undergraduates (1faculty) Objective 2: Mentoring. 2 Construction of professional and academic identity: role models (1faculty) Establishing an innovative research network through a seminar series (2 faculty) Developing a career path through internship experience(s) (1 faculty) Objective 3: Training and Research Experience. 4 Undergraduate collaborative research experiences (3faculty) Participation in decision-making at the regional level that involves the food-water-energy nexus (1faculty) Objective 4: Outreach. 3 Making science relevant to students & promoting a college-going culture (2 faculty) Professional leadership through campus-community involvement (1 faculty) Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Two project PDs (Drs. Den andGarza) and the project coordinator (De Hoyos) participated the Texas Stream Team's Core Standard Water Quality training on Nov. 4, 2023. As a results, both were certified Core Standard citizen scientists. The other PD, Dr. Sosa, already have been trainied and certified at advanced water quality level by the same program. Notable, Dr. Garza used the training outcome to conduct her class, EDBL 4322 (Teach Math, Sci, Dual Language), from which two students (both school science teachers) also participated in the same training, to designtwo curriculums (one example here). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We (the PD and co-PDs) participated in NIFA's Joint Project Director Meeting in April 19-21. Although we were not invited to introduce our project program as the project was just in the starting phase, we prepared a presentation (here)that was included in the meeting's elctronic agenda booklet (here). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to focus on the following actions to accomplish the stated objectives of the project: Objective 1: Recruitment and Retention We willhosta two-day Water Resources camp at the beginning of the spring break in 2024 (March, 2024).The goal of this camp is to raise science awareness and literary training activities for students in the high and middle schools of the Edgewood and Harlandale Independent School Districts. In the first day of the two-day camp,students will participate in a regional water lecture in a university classroom, followed by hands-on water quality training in a laboratory. A certified Texas Stream Team instructor will offer the lecture and conduct a laboratory exercise. On the second day, we will have a field trip similar to the field workshop we conducted with the teachers. Students will learn to characterize the conditions of rivers and streams, and understand the water "system" in the local and regional area surrounding San Antonio. We will conduct pre- and post-surveys to determine improved awareness of natural science and literacy and interests among high school students to go to college. Prior to recruiting events, we will work with theschool teachers who participated in the workshop to conducta 30-minute guest lecture about WaTER's activities and mentored research opportunities for the students . During these recruitment sessions (January, 2024), students will receive information regarding the natural science programs A&M-San Antonio offers.Note that these activities were planned for November 2023 but was postponed due to the stringent background check policy by the ISDs. The PDs could not enter school and engage with students until a full background check is completed. Objective 2: Mentoring We will continue our effort to invite HLAE alumnias career mentors for the WaTER students at TAMU-San Antonio. We will collaborate with the HLAE alumnito explore internship opportunities for up to a total of four undergraduate WaTER participants, contingent on the location and availability. If needed, we will arrange WaTER students for internship or shadowing opportunities with local agencies while being mentored. Objective 3: Training and Research Experience We continue to recruit college students to participate in undergraduate mentored research, by pairing them with graduate students conducting research relevant to water and soil management. We will leveragethe launch of the Water Resources club to recruit participants in both training acitivites (such as the Core Standard Water Quality training and advanced training by the Texas Stream Team,the River Warriors program by the San Antonio River Authority, and the stream cleanup study with San Antonio River Aid). The target number of undergraduate students participating in mentored research is 5. Objective 4: Outreach While this objective can be concurrently accomplishedwith Objective 1 activities, we plan to identify high school students participating in the two-day camp to work with TAMU-San Antonioundergraduate students in research projects. The results of their research projects can be showcased in public outreach events hosted by the River Authority and/or the annual student research symposium hosted by TAMU-San Antonio.The goal is to recruit three high school students to participate in research projects in the next reporting cycle.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. We held two workshops to recruit science teachers from the partnering school district, one in July 19, 2023 and another in November 4, 2023. The goal of the workshops are: (i) recruit teachers and share water-food-soil experiential learning teaching resources to enhance their teaching. (ii) build rapport with the teachers to support the project's objective of recruiting future students (Objective 1) and outreaching (Objective 4). Particularly, we plan to host a two-day water-soil-agriculture science camp targeting school children (8th-12th graders) during the start of the spring break in 2024. We asked the partnering schools to give us permission to speak to the school children in their science classes and encouraged students to particpate in our activities. In July 19's workshop, three teachers from the Harlandale Independent School District, one of ASPIRE members of ISDs in the southside of San Antonio partnering with TAMU-San Antonio, attended the workshop. The group included a high school science teacher, a middle school science teacher, and a special education administrator. The project team made presentation to introduce the project program and shared the resources that we have organized to enhance the teaching and learning experience relevant to water-food-health connection (agenda and presentation materials here). The workshop also included a 45-min session to collect feedback from the teachers concerning the challenges of the school children in the ISD face to instill a college-going mindset and the opportunities needed to help them. Considering the low turnout in the first workshop, the project team conducted a second workshop on November 4. Eight school teachers participated in this workshop, which was highlighted by the three-hour professional training by members of the Texas Stream Team, a state-sponsored citizen-science-promoting program centered on training basicfield water testing techniques to monitoring the health of Texas streams. Seven of the eight teachers who participated fully recieved a certificate for their effort (the other attendee departed early and did not complete the full activity on the day.) We leveraged our partnership with the Texas Stream Team to schedule training activities to demonstrate the experiential learning method that can be embedded in the teaching curriculum in the science classes pertinent for competency level up to the 10th grade. We felt this workshop was a success, as we were able to connect with the school teachers, shared our resources - in both infrastructure and equipment. Some of the activity photosare documented here for reporting purpose. This was the "Standard Core Monitoring" package involvingperforming tests for parameters such as conductivity, dissolved oxygen, pH, total depth, water and air temperature, and water transparency using a chemical Standard Core kit. In addition to these parameters, Standard Core citizen scientists also conduct various field observations such asalgae cover, water color, water clarity, water surface conditions, water odor, present weather, days since last significant precipitation, rainfall accumulation, etc. The external evaluation report of the workshops is attached here. The responses from the teachers were overwhelmingly positive and saw the beneficial value of the training to their teaching. 2. Forming Water Resources Club to kickstart the recruitment of TAMU-San Antonio undergraduate students to participate in field research experiences to meet Objective 3. The initial group of students recruited attended the Rain-to-Drain program on April 22, 2023,hosted by the local water utility company, the San Antonio Water System (SAWS). The program was designed to introduce to the public how urban water cycle looks like: Extractionfrom the unique yet vulnerable karstic aquifer (Edwards Aquifer), Treatment and distribution, distributed, and the wastewater being collected and treated at the Dos Rios (Steven Clouse) Water Reclamation Center and discharged back into Medina River. See activity report here. The second trip was to visit the urban farm "Greenies" on June 21, 2023. See activity report here (Part II).The purpose of the tour is for the students to understand the connectivity between water, agriculture, and community health. Texas A&M AgriLife Bexar County Extension Service, a partner of the WaTER program, led the tour by explaining the facilities offered, the crop research performed, and how community members can help each by volunteering in urban farming to produce food. 3. We held eightseminars during the Fall semester of 2023 between September 6 and November 8 to meet Objective 2. Although we did not have success in arrranging alums of the Hispanic Leaders in Agriculture and the Environment for mentoring due to availability issues to alignboth the students and the mentors, we were able to schedule seminar guest speakers from local agencies that can potentially offer internship and "shadowing" opportunities to the students. The speakers who gave the hour-long presentations (hyperlinked to the recording on youtube) included scientists and managers from: San Antonio River Authority Shaun Donovan -Manager of Environmental Sciences Chris Vaughn -Urban Stream Ecologist Leamon Anderson -Deputy Director, Utilities Operations Edwards Aquifer Authority Gizelle Luevano -Lead Hydrologic Data Coordinator Geary Schindel - (retired) Chief Scientist Thomas Marsalia- Sustainability Manager San Antonio Water System Steven Siebert - Project Coordinator of Water Resources Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center, Uvalde Dr. Xuejun Dong - Crop Physiologist Students in the WaTER program were encouraged to participate in these virtual presentation, usually scheduled in the lunch time on Wednesdays during the semester to accommodate the schedule of the students. Typically 6 to 8 students participated in these seminars and had the opportunity to interact with the speakers with questions pertaining to not just the subject matter but also the career paths that they experienced.
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