Interdisciplinary BC team to work with high school STEM instructors
An interdisciplinary Boston College team from the Engineering Department and the Lynch School of Education and Human Development has been awarded a three-year, $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation that will help prepare high school STEM instructors to teach engineering in public school systems.
The project aims to assist teachers who primarily serve students from underrepresented and underserved backgrounds, and who are from STEM-minoritized groups.
Launching in January, the initiative draws upon emerging trends in cellular agriculture—the process of using cell cultures to produce cultivated products instead of whole organisms—and STEM education to address secondary school teachers’ limited or non-existent engineering backgrounds, and their likely hesitancy to teach concepts with which they lack fluency.
L-R: NSF grant recipients Helen Zhang, Luke Perreault, Glenn Gaudette, Ali Salifu, G. Michael Barnett, and Avneet Hira (Caitlin Cunningham)
Glenn R. Gaudette, the John W. Kozarich ’71 Chair of the Engineering Department, said that BC researchers and educators in the Human-Centered Engineering program will work with the STEM educators to conduct cellular agriculture investigations “while developing the pedagogical skills related to making, building and engineering design that is applicable to the classrooms and schools in which they teach.”
According to principal investigator Avneet Hira, an assistant professor of engineering and the Sabet Family Dean’s Faculty Fellow, the teachers will be immersed in pioneering research in a transdisciplinary learning environment, in which they will apply engineering, science, and learning science concepts to co-design and test engineering lesson plans for their students.
“This form of cooperative effort will help researchers better understand teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward cellular agriculture, sustainability concepts, and STEM careers, which will, in turn, support their future work in cellular agriculture,” she said.
G. Michael Barnett, a Lynch School professor in the Teaching, Curriculum, and Society Department, said “the field of cellular agriculture offers many opportunities for secondary education teachers and their students to engage in cutting-edge bioengineering research while working on sustainability related projects.”
According to Engineering Assistant Professor Ali Salifu, cellular agriculture—also known as “cell ag”—utilizes biotechnology, tissue engineering, and synthetic biology to create new ways to produce proteins, fats, and tissues.
“It’s a potential ethical alternative to factory farming since cells can be sourced and grown without killing donor animals,” he said. “Cell ag also reduces the environmental impact of food production by lowering emissions, and land and water use, and it can lead to healthier alternatives in the food, beverage, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries.”
The most well-known cellular agriculture concept is cultured (or cultivated) meat, which is produced by culturing animal cells in vitro on edible “scaffolds” that support and direct cell growth, according to Luke Perreault, a core fellow and visiting assistant professor of engineering.
Looking ahead, Lynch School Senior Research Associate Helen Z. Zhang said “the stakeholders, partnerships, and evaluation activities will help the project and participants develop new knowledge about high school-university partnerships, particularly for emerging STEM research fields.”