Interactions with Volunteers at a Day of Hands‐on Physiology Demonstrations Increases Interest in Scientific Careers in a Native American Indian Population of Middle and High School Students
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose To provide middle and high school students from Nebraska and South Dakota Native American reservations with an interactive and physiology based educational experience and exposure to scientific careers. Methods We partnered with several schools representing middle and high school students from various Native American Indian tribes of Nebraska and South Dakota. Approximately 300 children were bussed in for a day of physiology‐based activities presented by graduate students and faculty. The “Physiology Day” experience included 9 booths focusing on multiple physiological systems. Students spent approximately 25 minutes at the different booths, and each highlighted a different physiological system. Students completed an assessment designed to determine their baseline knowledge and exposure to science as a career prior to engaging in the educational activities. A second assessment was completed following the day of activities to evaluate the effectiveness of the activities to change students’ perceptions and knowledge of physiology. Results Before beginning activities, only 17% of students reported “knowing” a scientist, and this number more than doubled to 44% after interacting with graduate/medical students throughout the event. When students were asked if they “knew anyone that was a healthcare provider” the response pre and post tests were similar (73% vs 76%, respectively). Students were also asked how interested they were in becoming a scientist. At the beginning of the day, almost one quarter (23%) of students indicated that they “did not know” if they were interested in becoming a scientist, which decreased by approximately half (12%) at the end of the day. The proportion of students that indicated that were “very interested” in becoming a scientist increased by 8%. By way of control, students were asked about their interest in health‐related careers by evaluating their interest in working in a hospital or clinic. There was only a 3% decrease in students answering “did not know” to this question in the pre and post‐tests and a 1% decline in students answering “very interested”. Before the activities 64% of students indicated that they believed science to be “very useful”, which increased to 72% of responders following the day of activities. In conclusion, students participating in our physiology‐themed outreach event were able to interact with volunteers at a level sufficient to increase their awareness of individuals that are scientists. Our event also promoted an increased interest in considering a career in science and increased students’ perceptions of the usefulness of science. Support or Funding Information SEPA (RR032178) (OD011071)
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".