Project OASIS - Outdoor Adventure for Supporting Innovative Science
Dr. Mariana Bonfim, Dr. Amy Freestone, Mary Cortese, Dr. Steve Sassaman, Kathleen Salisbury
Through a two-day immersion workshop at Temple's Ambler campus, OASIS leverages the opportunity for participants to develop unparalleled skills in outdoor education to expand their environmental literacy and fluency in teaching about global change. This innovative teaching training program is designed for undergraduate students in CST who are interested in careers in education, with a focus on recruiting from underrepresented student populations in the sciences, as well as graduate students, faculty, and staff interested in sustainability promotion and professional development. Facilitated by experienced instructors, the workshop will provide practical skills, tools, and strategies for designing and delivering inspirational outdoor education activities with a focus on climate change. Participants will also have the chance to network with individuals and organizations within Temple and CST, fostering a sense of community and inclusion. Led by the Ambler Field Station in collaboration with Temple faculty and staff, OASIS allows participants to develop skills in outdoor education at an accessible site right in suburban Philadelphia while critically reflecting on sustainability practices and innovative science education approaches for their careers, equipping them to meaningfully educate future generations about some of our most pressing environmental changes.

FunScienceToons
Dr. George Mehler
FunScienceToons, a division of the College of Science and Technology’s FunScienceNetwork, is committed to representing students and scientists of many different ethnicities, while creating peer to peer-based science lesson animations for young learners. Animations can significantly increase young students’ understanding of challenging science concepts and seeing favorable depictions of their own race/ethnicity group has been shown to enhance children’s self-conception. It has also been noted that learners who are exposed to representation are more likely to become curious about and pursue careers being modeled for them. Young adults who see themselves reflected in these mentors often become interested in the fields of their respected role models, but while there are many examples in popular culture and social media of sports heroes, famous musicians, actors, and wealthy entrepreneurs, there are far fewer role models in STEM. FunScienceToons aims to fill that need, and is presented on a robust YouTube channel, FunScienceDemos, which delivers over 10,000 science lessons a day, and has over 160,000 subscribers. Significantly, this channel is free, thereby giving many underserved schools locally and around the world access to a high quality science curriculum aligned with the NGSs standards. FunScienceDemos helps create a global presence for Temple University and the College of Science and Technology, while the learning community within the channel showcases Temple University’s College of Science and Technology as a leader in STEM education, and as a university that students would be interested in attending. The FunScienceToons team is honored to be a CST DII grant recipient, and plans to use this award to develop two new animation lessons that present ethnically diverse characters who model scientific approaches to real-life questions.

The Calculus of Success
Maria Lorenz, Director of Undergraduate Studies for Mathematics
Irina Mitrea, Chair of Department of Mathematics
This program targets incoming freshmen from local, high needs high schools, who have placed into Calculus I. We will bring a cohort of 25 of these students to campus for a week of intensive preparation for college mathematics, in particular, for Calculus I at Temple University. A team of experienced faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students will work with the cohort on study skills, precalculus content review, mathematical writing skills, and general strategies for success as they transition from high school to college. The goals of the program are for all participants to succeed in Calculus I and to have the confidence and knowledge to be successful in future mathematics courses, to establish a cohort of peers with whom they may continue to work, and to establish professional mentoring relationships with faculty, graduate students, and more advanced undergraduate students.

SPROUT: Science Preparatory Research Opportunities for Underrepresented Teens
Salma Mami‚ CST '23, Neuroscience
Gibreel Mami‚ CST '24, Neuroscience
Hajra Sohail‚ CST '23, Biology
Erik Cordes, Professor and Vice Chair of Biology, faculty advisor
SPROUT provides high school juniors with low socioeconomic status early exposure to graduate-level research education, improves the research enterprise through increased diversity, and prepares passionate students to study at Temple University’s College of Science and Technology. SPROUT's first cohort was this past summer, where selected students in the Philadelphia area worked alongside CST faculty to not only be introduced to research, but also attended skill-building workshops and presented their findings at a final symposium.

CST Belonging: Helping Students Be Self-Reliant
Dominique Kliger, Ph.D., Mia Luehrmann, Ph.D., & Catherine Schifter, Ph.D.
This multidisciplinary project is intended to introduce STEM students to a social belonging classroom activity during their freshman year. It is designed with the intent to increase resilience, tolerance to failure, self- confidence, and therefore, to increase student retention at the College of Science and Technology at Temple University. This social belonging initiative has already been successfully implemented at the University of Cincinnati, University of Minnesota, University of Pittsburg, Ohio State University and Princeton University.

Buckets & Beakers
Fenerty, Jimmy MBB Assistant Coach
O’Dell, Zachary CST Graduate Student
Paranzino, Bianca CST Graduate Student
Reinhardt, Phillip CST Graduate Student
Reo Jessica, WBB Executive Senior Associate AD/SWA
Samano Talisa, WBB Player Development
Willets, Katherine (Kallie) CST Professor
Buckets & Beakers is a science outreach program that aspires to better engage young Black and Hispanic students with scientific materials by pairing such materials with students’ pre-existing, non-STEM related interests, particularly athletics and sport. For its first iteration in Spring 2023, Buckets & Beakers will partner Temple’s chemistry department with Temple’s basketball teams in order to offer a unique and unforgettable experience with chemistry at the forefront. During this annual day program, local 5th and 6th grade students are invited to Temple’s campus to first complete a set of exciting, visually-stimulating, and thought-provoking chemistry experiments led by members of the basketball teams and chemistry department. Following the conclusion of these activities and lunch, students are invited to tour Temple’s basketball facilities, shootaround with members of the team, and enjoy some liquid nitrogen ice cream to end the day. The ultimate goal of Buckets & Beakers is to create a fun and memorable day of science that allows and encourages Black and Hispanic students to see themselves as future students in STEM.

First-Generation Student Support
Jessica McLaughlin, Acadmic Advisor (CIS, Math, Physics)
Frank Nelson, Biology Faculty member
First generation college students, who the first person in their family to earn a US bachelor’s degree, often face more challenges than their continuing generation peers. At the root of these problems is a feeling of not belonging and I should not be here. The DII grant will fund community building events throughout the semester where Temple branded prizes for engaging in event competitions will be won, and stickers to help identify faculty who are first generation to increase first-gen students' sense of belonging and build social capital at the University.

Diversity in science – stories of success and integration
Dr. Olena Mishchuk, Assistant Professor, Biology
Dr. Uloma Opara-Osuoha, Assistant Professor, Biology
"Diversity in science – stories of success and integration" is a project that aims to demonstrate the value of diversity, equity, and integration. By inviting speakers from diverse backgrounds, particularly women and minorities, it will be possible to demonstrate to students from similar backgrounds that successful career paths in science and medicine are possible and accessible. One of the goals is to help the participating students recognize the importance and understand the root causes of societal inequalities, so that they may subsequently pursue change and promote diversity and inclusion. In addition, the intention is to construct an atmosphere of inclusivity and support, which is a key to any healthy community. It is important to make people feel comfortable and welcome, especially when their culture and traditions are least acknowledged. Acknowledging people’s identities and specific needs, as well as giving them a sense of belonging helps create an inclusive culture. Shared experiences and storytelling help create the potential for positive change.

Providing an Inclusive Alternative to Field Camp
Alexandra Davatzes, Associate Professor, Department of Earth & Environmental Science (EES) Laura Toran, Professor, EES Sujith Ravi, Assistant Professor, EES Allison Tumarkin-Deratzian, Associate Professor of Instruction, EES
This project aims to modify field camp, a geology capstone, to address access issues associated with the curriculum that are likely to discourage diverse participation, while maintaining a strong geoscience degree. It will introduce an alternative integrative program that will meet many of the same learning objectives as field camp, while still providing accessible, safe, and scaffolded curriculum that takes into account the potential barriers of the current design.

Improving Understanding and Appreciation of Diversity within CST through the First-Year Seminar Course
Thomas Price, Director, Academic Advising
This project will review how other institutions facilitate discussions of equity, inclusion and diversity within their first-year populations, develop a course module on this topic for Temple' University's required first-year seminar, establish activities to support this module, and provide professional development for all instructors to be completed in the summer of 2021 before teaching the course in fall 2021.