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Contact: Jason Marton
jason.marton@tamuk.edu or 361-593-4143

Middle, high school teachers gain research experience through summer program

Ret

KINGSVILLE (August 9, 2005) — Four South Texas middle school and high school teachers and one graduate student got to walk in the shoes of environmental researchers for five weeks as part of the second annual summer Research Experience for Teachers (RET), a program sponsored by the Center for Research Excellence in Science and Technology-Research on Environmental Sustainability of Semi-Arid Coastal Areas (CREST-RESSACA) at Texas A&M University-Kingsville.

Under the program, the five were selected to receive hands-on experience with environmental engineering technology through A&M-Kingsville’s Ph.D. program for environmental engineering.
The RET program was coordinated by Dr. Kuruvilla John, associate dean of the Frank H. Dotterweich College of Engineering, and Joyce Coleman, RET program director with CREST-RESSACA.

The middle school teachers that took part in the RET program were Laura Heil of Gregory-Portland and Cheryl Tam of Corpus Christi. The high school teachers included Celina Vargas of Kingsville and returning participant Carlos Guerrero of Alice. The final participant, Beth Chase, is a master’s student studying to be a teacher at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

In June, the teachers began the program at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, where they attended the class Teaching Environmental Sciences II. In it, the five learned about different student curriculum activities pertaining to experimental design, wetland zonation, field sampling, specimen collection and water quality analysis.

Upon completion of the 10-day class, the teachers reported to A&M-Kingsville, where each was matched with a different faculty research group for three weeks. Each group was made up of a faculty advisor, graduate students and, in some cases, undergraduate students on assignment.
Heil was teamed up with Dr. Alvaro Martinez. The subject of her research project was the air pollution between the Texas-Mexico Border.

Tam worked with Dr. Kim Jones on a project examining the effects of native vegetation on agricultural effluent in constructed wetlands

Vargas worked with Dr. Lee Clapp on en-situ denitrification and chromate immobilization.
Chase worked with Dr. Jennifer Ren on studying the effects of anthropogenic land water disturbances on a semiarid regional landscape balance in South Texas.

Guerrero was teamed with Dr. Venkatesh Uddameri to study dissolved oxygen.

The teachers served as observers and participants, helping to gather data and receiving graduate-level instruction and explanation of each group’s research subject.

During the course of the three weeks, the teachers took the advanced concepts they were learning and applied them in the development of middle school- and high school-level lesson plans for the upcoming school year.

At the end of the program, the teachers gave presentations summarizing their research experiences and provided feedback to their university mentors before receiving certificates of completion.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Tam. “It’s been neat to see how much they do at the university level and have the chance to talk about it with our students. There is equipment at A&M-Kingsville that we just don’t have at our middle school.”

Tam noted the value of getting hands-on experience to share with her students and help get them interested in the engineering field.

“Last year, my topic was air pollution. This year it was hydrology,” said returning program participant Guerrero. “This program has given me the chance to expand my knowledge and bring real world experience back to the class. I get a whole lot out of this.”

This page last updated 10 August, 2005