Science Education Research & Course Study

Social-Environmental Synthesis (SES) Teaching Study

Dr. Caroline Solomon, along with Dr. Khadijat Rashid in the Department of Business, is teaching an undergraduate course that is an exercise in teaching and learning how students do synthesis in order to tackle socio-environmental problems as part of a multi-year multi-intuitional teaching study conducted through the Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC).

The course is being co-taught as an elective aimed at sophomores through seniors majoring primarily in business and the sciences. The framework of the course includes two modules, a rural one on poultry farmers and an urban study of the water quality of the Anacostia River (DC).

During each module, students act as expert groups or stakeholders as part of a jigsaw model and utilize social and natural science data to create synthetic products aimed at achieving actionable science.

ASL-STEM Forum

Dr. Caroline Solomon is collaborating with Dr. Richard Ladner at the University of Washington to develop the ASL-STEM forum, an online wiki of technical signs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

The ASL-STEM forum is an open community where anyone can contribute signs in ASL that best correspond to technical words in English. The forum maintains a database of all the different signs which have been contributed. Members who join this community can assign a rating for each of the various signs in the database.

Workshop for Emerging Deaf and Hard of Hearing Scientists and White Paper

The Workshop for Emerging Deaf and hard of hearing Scientists took place on May 17-18, 2012. It brought together deaf and hard of hearing people in various stages of STEM career development, ranging from high school students interested in STEM, to fully established professionals.

We have written a white paper documenting the state and experiences as well as resources and future directions for deaf and hard of hearing people in STEM. People interested in joining the Facebook group to continue networking should contact Dr. Caroline Solomon.