Collaborative and Intergenerational Mural Project of Environmental Design, the Society for Creative Aging, and Horizons Alternative Elementary School
Professor Willem Van Vliet
Target Audience: Boulder County senior citizens and K-5 stsiludents and teachers from Boulder’s Horizons Alternative School
This project creates a mural to mark the entrance of the Children, Youth, and Environments Center at CU-Boulder. Professor Van Vliet brings together community groups to form a productive partnership that supports each of their own goals, as well as, provides an interdisciplinary experiential learning opportunity for CU-Boulder students. Many students will receive internship credit for their participation. The project also includes a public event and dance performance, drawing in the Department of Theatre and Dance as well. For more information visit the Intergenerational Mural Project website.
Place-based Environmental Education Research Workshop
Professor Louise Chawla and Professor Willem Van Vliet
Target Audience: Boulder Valley School District Teachers, Staff, and Parents
The Children, Youth, and Environments Center for Research and Design, in conjunction with Colorado Association for Environmental Education, will host a workshop on Place-Based Environmental Education Research that will focus on research results on the benefits of this type of approach to education for students, and provide the information and tools on how to evaluate education projects of this kind. The workshop will further enhance the Center’s environmental architecture projects currently underway at various schools in the Boulder Valley School District. For more information visit the Children, Youth and Environments Center for Research and Design website.
Re-Manufacturing Affordable Housing: A Design-Build Studio for Undergraduate Students in Partnership with the Local Community
Professor Willem Van Vliet
Target Audience: families from Boulder’s low-income housing programs
The project features a two-piece service-learning course that involves students and faculty in the design and construction of an affordable housing unit. The group applies sustainable building technology that combines straw bales with a mobile home core. The project has faced a variety of hurdles that are common and unpredictably predictable when you involve several community partners and a couple of large organizations. Although the effort is behind schedule, it has been very well received in the community and a tremendous learning opportunity for the students involved – for seven consecutive semesters. The project is 95% complete and the group has several community requests to replicate the project. For additional information visit the Trailer Wrap website.
ArtsBridge Outreach
Professor Eric Stade, Department of Mathematics with ArtsBridge Director Valerie Albicker, Department of Art and Art History
Target Audience: K-5 Pioneer Elementary students, Lafayette
ArtsBridge works in partnership with metro and Boulder area public schools to engage K-12 students in hands-on arts education at no cost to the school. CU-Boulder graduate and undergraduate upper-level honors students work in classrooms for a semester, providing 24 contact hours to bring exemplary models for arts teaching, and focusing on integrating arts across the curriculum (using art as a bridge). This specific project emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of ArtsBridge in that it seeks to partner their efforts with math professor Eric Stade’s ongoing outreach at Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer Elementary School in east Boulder County. His students meet weekly for after school math workshops and provide in-class learning aides. Further, ArtsBridge is interested in other community-based partnerships that could broaden the program’s impact as well as interdisciplinary opportunities. For additional information visit the ArtsBridge website and CU Math Department website.
Attention, Behavior, and Learning Clinic
Assistant Professor Erik Willcutt and Research Associate Nomita Chhabildas, Department of Psychology
Target Audience: disadvantaged families with low-income levels who could not otherwise afford evaluation for their children.
The ABL Clinic provides a low cost comprehensive evaluation for children from low-income families who are experiencing academic, behavioral, and/or emotional difficulties. Graduate students receive practicum credit for their work in the clinic as well as, what they describe as, incredibly valuable experience and confidence building opportunities. Further still, the data collected from the past three years is now being used via a database for Masters’, dissertation and other projects. Professor Willcutt has begun to integrate a research component directly into the clinic. For additional information visit the Raimy Psychology Clinic Child Assessment website.
Classroom Development and Testing of the Spanish Version of My Water Comes from the Mountains (Mi Agua viene de las Montanas Rocosas)
Professor Mark Williams, Department of Geography and Professor Diane McKnight, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering and INSTAAR Fellow
Target Audience: K-5 students at bilingual schools including University Hill Elementary School in Boulder, Pioneer Elementary School in Lafayette, and Columbine and Loma Linda Elementary Schools in Longmont.
This project hopes to increase public understanding of water resources by enhancing children’s understanding of basic hydrology through presenting and testing a Spanish version of the already successful My Water Comes from the Mountains children’s book. The narrative of the book takes children (ages 7-10) on a journey from glacial and snowpack sources to the plains and water in their faucet tap, with many stops along the way. The applicants have received several requests for just such a Spanish version, as well as a text more generalized to the entire Front Range (the current book discusses Boulder and Longmont watersheds). The new version will be tested through next year with five bilingual elementary schools (Boulder, Denver and Longmont – grades 3-5), publication could reach school children from New Mexico to Idaho, on both sides of the Continental Divide. For additional information visit the My Water Comes from the Mountains website.
Colorado Math Circle for Advanced High School Students
Senior Instructor Anne Dougherty, Department of Applied Mathematics
Target Audience: mathematically talented high school students from Denver and Boulder
The Math Circle brings together Colorado’s top students for adventures in mathematical problem solving, challenging them to use creativity and ingenuity to tackle difficult problems. During the coming year the applicants propose to increase attendance at the meetings, involve more girls and underrepresented minorities, and shift some focus to improving mathematical writing skills. They also will seek to establish a monthly problem solving class for 7th-9th graders who are not quite ready for the older group. The project’s primary goal is to stimulate, support and enrich the best young math minds in Colorado The project also features a Colorado Math Circle website, for circle members and other interested students from across Colorado.
German Language Immersion Day 2008
Senior Instructor Patricia Schindler, Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures
Target Audience: middle and high school German language students from Boulder Valley School District
The program takes place on campus every other year and approximately 300 students attend. Faculty and CU-Boulder students work to develop a series of 15 activities, from which each student participant selects three. The goal is to build relationships within the German-speaking community, serve as a resource in aiding local K-12 schools in retaining students within their language programs and recruiting students to CU-Boulder. For additional information visit the German Studies website.
Girls at the Museum Exploring Science (GAMES): An after school science program at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History
Assistant Professor Jaelyn Eberle, Museum and Field Studies and Department of Geological Sciences
Target Audience: 4th and 5th grade girls from Boulder Valley Schools
GAMES is a unique program developed to encourage interest and excitement about science in preadolescent girls (4th and 5th grade). The program consists of 7 weekly after school visits to the CU Museum. While at the museum girls explore archaeology, botany, entomology, paleontology, and zoology through hands-on activity and direct interaction with scientists and museum professionals. Transportation to and from the museum, snacks, and tools for follow up activities are provided to all participants free of charge. This will be the program’s tenth year, serving 200 adults and 105 students in BVSD each year. For more information visit the CU Museum website.
Integrated African Arts: Increasing Awareness for K-12 Students in Colorado
Instructor Nii Armah Sowah, Department of Theatere and Dance
Target Audience: K-12 schools in Boulder and the greater Denver area
This project features a documentary about everyday African life. The work is based on the recognition that artistic expression, like other human needs, is a human right. The fact that African music and dance are an integral part of daily life makes them effective media to learn about African life and culture. Project goals include the desire to broaden the scope of understanding about life in Africa and to make a documentary that is engaging to local school children that highlights African children at play, at home, at school, and in their community. For more information visit the Theatre and Dance website.
Preparing High School Government Students for College–level Political Science
Professor Kenneth Bickers, Department of Political Science
Target Audience: Silver Creek High School government students, Longmont
The primary goal of this project is to introduce high school students to social scientific methods typically employed by scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates. The project developed after a series of conversations over the past two years with the social studies teacher at Silver Creek. “What should high school government and social studies students be learning to equip them for college classes in political science and other social sciences?” The project develops curriculum modules that will give the students hands-on exposure to the application of scientific methods to enduring topics of American politics. The undergraduate students who create the modules will receive independent study credit for their participation. For more visit the Political Science department website.
Saturday Physics Series
Professor John Cumalat, Department of Physics
Target Audience: Colorado high school students and teachers and adults
Through five public presentations, this program highlights research and the application of physical sciences, while exposing high school students and the community to the research of some of CU-Boulder’s best physical sciences faculty. Talks are presented at the high school junior and senior level and generally attract between 80 to 180 audience members. Some local physics teachers have made attendance at one lecture a requirement of their class. For more information visit the Saturday Physics Series website.
Spirit and Uses of Mathematics/Mathematics Year 2: An Aesthetic Approach
Professor Eric Stade, Department of Mathematics
Target Audience: the students and teachers of east Boulder County’s Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer Elementary School
This project expands upon Professor Stade’s existing math course for future elementary school teachers by taking what his students are learning on campus into the classrooms of Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer (a bilingual elementary school in east Boulder County). They will provide monthly professional development workshops for teachers, weekly after-school math workshops for students, resource support for the Talented and Gifted Program as well as tutoring. The project hopes to invigorate the mathematics program at Pioneer by providing requested support for both teachers and students. It also strengthens the mathematics education of the CU-Boulder students by providing them with significant experiential learning opportunities. For more information visit the Math department website.
Teaching National Park Service Interpretive Staff the Geology of Arches and Canyonlands National Parks
Associate Professor Karl Mueller, Department of Geological Sciences
Target Audience: National Park Service Interpretive Rangers who are responsible for interacting with visitors to the parks
Professor Mueller will use teaching materials developed for undergraduate teaching at CU-Boulder and his own research to train ranger naturalists working in three National Park Districts. During a pilot workshop it became obvious that park staff greatly needed and appreciated the opportunity to have a trained geologist sort through the geological implications associated with Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. Further, the park service would benefit from knowing more about the environmental impact of the shifting topography as it determines where to place roads and visitor access. Through these trainings, Professor Mueller will gain access to numerous park resources and databases. For more information visit the Geological Sciences department website.
Training Community Clinicians in Evidence Based Treatments for Depression
Assistant Professor Sona Dimidjian, Department of Psychology
Target Audience: psychologically at-risk pregnant women through Kaiser Permanente
This proposal aims to train clinicians and establish a pilot for a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) program for at-risk pregnant women at Kaiser Permanente of Colorado (KPCO). Ideally this effort with KPCO will develop into an even more meaningful relationship that provides CU-Boulder students with experiential learning opportunities and outreach endeavors in the future. For more information visit the Psychology department website.
Workshop for K-12 Educators in Hearing Loss Prevention
Associate Professor Kathryn Hoberg Arehart, Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences
Target Audience: K-12 school teachers, nurses, audiologists and speech-language pathologists
Now in it’s third year, this program works to educate school children about the importance of taking care of their hearing. Workshops for teachers and others who work with Colorado’s students include instruction in the science of sound, human hearing, hearing health, and dangerous decibels. The curriculum also includes interactive materials and activities that educators can use in their schools. This program is a direct extension of Professor Arehart’s teaching and research and she involves her students through the small-group component of the workshop. She has on-going communications with the participants and future plans for incorporating a web-based forum. For more information visit the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences department website.
Writing Beyond Limits
Senior Instructor Kayann Short, Farrand Residential Academic Program
Target Audience: five low-security female inmates from Boulder County Jail
This project delivers a three-day intensive workshop to five, low-security inmates at the Boulder County Jail. The program has terrific connections within the Boulder community, with existing literacy programs and the intended audience. The workshop will teach digital storytelling next summer in an ATLAS classroom where each participant will create a high-quality digital video using their own text, photos, and artwork to express an important life experience. The stories will be displayed at the Boulder Public Library.
Evaluation of the St. Vrain Valley School District’s MESA Program
Assistant Professor Valerie Otero
Target Audience: current and future students and teachers impacted by St. Vrain Valley School District’s MESA Program
The MESA project in the St. Vrain Valley School District is an after school program with the unique mission to encourage, motivate, support, and prepare students for success in the pursuit of undergraduate degrees and careers in mathematics, engineering, science, and technology. It serves all students but has a particular interest and focus on students from groups historically underrepresented in related careers. This evaluation project will contribute greatly to the sustainability of MESA by providing hard evidence to support the efficacy of the MESA program for lowering the achievement gap. The evaluation was directly requested by the school district and will aid in future funding requests. The project will provide valuable research opportunities to CU-Boulder students and expand Dr. Otero’s research to include K-12 underrepresented student achievement. For more information visit the Colorado MESA program website.
Mountain Ecology Program to Serve Regional Title 1 Elementary Schools
Professor William Bowman, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with Science Discovery Executive Director Jeffrey Kidder
Target Audience: Fifth grade students from Denver Public Schools
This project continues a science education partnership that was piloted last year among Science Discovery, the Mountain Research Station (MRS), EE Biology, and Goldrick Elementary’s fifth grade classrooms. It expands this year to involve three DPS elementary schools, fifth graders only with their teacher(s), in an overnight field trip to the MRS that follows two or three in-classroom workshops with a CU-Boulder graduate student. The primary goal is to continue to develop a project that will result in an effective experiential model for teaching and learning mountain ecology for delivery to at-risk students at the upper elementary level. The project features graduate students teaching and mentoring students and teachers throughout the program. For more information visit the Science Discovery website.
Science Explorers – The Nature of Light: Lasers, Optics and Animal Vision
Professor Margaret Murnane, Departments of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering with Science Discovery, School of Education
Target Audience: Middle school students throughout Colorado
Light and optics are a new content standard for middle schools in Colorado. This day-long activity based workshop for 21 teams, comprised of one teacher with five students, seeks to introduce CU-Boulder faculty research. The co-applicant, Dr. Michael Celaya, is the director of education/outreach at the NSF Extreme Ultraviolet Engineering Research Center at Colorado State University. For more information visit the Science Discovery website.
Assessing the Extent of Mercury Contamination in the Reservoirs, Lakes, and Streams of Southwestern Colorado
Professor Joe Ryan, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering
Target Audience: Residents of the southwestern Colorado region including Archuleta, Dolores, La Plata, Montezuma, and San Juan Counties, and Utes on the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Indian Reservations.
In conjunction with the Mountain Studies Institute in Silverton, the Southern Ute Tribe’s Environmental Programs Division, and the Pine River Watershed Group, Professor Ryan and CU-Boulder Engineering students will augment the efforts of the community groups in assessing the sources, deposition, and risks of mercury in the southwestern Colorado region. The research will focus on sampling, analysis, and evaluation of mercury in reservoirs, lakes, and streams in the southwestern Colorado region. Sampling locations will complement the sampling done by the project partners and will focus on reservoirs, lakes, and streams from which fish are caught for consumption. Sampling will conducted quarterly at ten sampling locations. Access to advanced mercury analysis techniques will be provided through the collaboration with Dr. George Aiken of the U.S. Geological Survey in Boulder. Visit Professor Ryan’s website for information on his research.
“Catch the Sound” – An Open Exhibit for Informal Education in Biodiversity at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History
Research Associate Elisa Giaccardi and Professor Gerhard Fisher, Department of Computer Science
Target Audience: public visitors to the museum, as well as local elementary school group tours
This project represents Phase 2 of the Silence of the Lands – an “ecomuseum” of the Boulder sonic environment that is, according to the definition of “ecomuseum,” a dynamic way in which communities preserve, interpret, and manage their natural heritage for a sustainable development. The applicants believe that information technologies can be used to enhance sensitivity to natural surroundings, cultivate environmental culture, and build a community capable of generating shared understanding. The sound mapping activities in Phase 1 are important to supporting experiential learning and fostering community building around an activity as fun as sound mapping. Phase 2 Catch the Sound produces such shared understanding by using natural sounds as a way to learn about biodiversity. There are a lot of different groups excited about the possibilities and efforts underway and the collaboration is working to apply for a joint NSF Informal Science Education grant proposal. For more information visit the Silence of the Lands project website.
CU-Boulder Campus Experiences in Engineering: Helping Underrepresented Students Envision a College Future
Research Associate Jackie Sullivan, ITLL
Target Audience: students from Boulder Valley School District and Denver School of Science and Technology
This project features partnerships with engineering focused schools in both Denver (Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST)) and Boulder (the six Lafayette schools in the BVSD, elementary through high school). The schools represent students that come from diverse and economically challenged backgrounds. The program seeks to provide meaningful educational experiences for these students to interest them in both college and perhaps a future in engineering. DSST students will participate in a visit to campus that revolves around a GPS scavenger hunt as well as other emerging engineering fields. The Lafayette students will be involved in the College’s annual Design Expo by working during the school year to address a design challenge and culminating the effort with the Expo. For more information visit the ITLL program website.
Remediation of Sites Contaminated by Dry Cleaning Activities in Colorado and Evaluation of In SITU Treatment Methods for NDMA Contaminated Sites in Colorado
Associate Professor Angela Bielefeldt, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering
Target Audience: Communities near contaminated sites throughout Colorado
Professor Bielefeldt is currently involved in two environmental outreach research projects. The Remediation of Sites Contaminated by Dry Cleaning Activities in Colorado project seeks to evaluate inexpensive site characterization and remediation methods for contaminated dry cleaning sites across the state. The project has already established relationships with the Colorado Department of Public Health to streamline information about existing sites. Professor Bielefeldt is hugely involved in the project on all levels and has not only incorporated the effort into her senior capstone Environmental Engineering Design course as a service learning component, but she is mentoring several students through related research projects as well. The ultimate goal of the research is to assist the State of Colorado in cleaning up sites contaminated by PCE to prevent adverse health effects. The Evaluation of In SITU Treatment Methods for NDMA Contaminated Sites in Colorado project explores possible solutions to water contamination in communities across Colorado, specifically for NDMA, jet fuel related contamination. Two sites will be involved in this particular research endeavor – the former Beechcraft site north of Boulder on Hwy 36 and the Air Force Plant site 25 miles SE of Denver near Waterton. Numerous other communities in Colorado could benefit from an in situ solution to NDMA contamination. For more information visit the Civil, Environmental, and Architectural department website.
Foster Care Youth Summit
Associate Professor Claire Huntington and Clinical Professor Colene Robinson, Juvenile and Family Law Program
Target Audience: Foster care youth from across the state will be invited, in addition to policy makers, judicial officers, child welfare workers, university students and alumni, and lawyers
A statewide foster care youth summit will be hosted at CU-Boulder to highlight pedagogical and scholarly work of the JFLP and to bring together faculty, foster youth, advocates, and policy makers to develop recommendations that enhance youth participation in the child welfare system. The audience for this outreach endeavor – the youth – are markedly disadvantage, and disproportionately minority. JFLP coordinates with the School of Education to better meet children’s unmet needs and the Education faculty will also participate in the summit. By holding the summit at CU-Boulder it will enable participants to draw upon the wealth of research being conducted by CU-Boulder faculty in this area and enable CU-Boulder faculty and students to play a direct role in shaping policy. For more information visit the Juvenile and Family Law Program website.
Where Will Your Land Go When You Pass On? Estate Planning for American Indian Allottees
Professor Jill Tompkins, American Indian Law Clinic
Target Audience: Members of the American Indian community with interests in allotted land on Colorado reservations and the intermountain region of the western United States as well as members of the legal community who practice Indian law, estate planning, and probate law
The project involves research into new developments regarding Indian Probate Reform, teaching clinic students about the impact, and an outreach component that shares these new findings with the intended audience. Two local tribes are hugely impacted by the negative ramifications of these recent changes – the Southern Ute and the Ute Mountains (30,000 live off the reservations in Colorado, 10,000 on the reservations). During the Denver March Powwow the clinic plans to host a series of educational workshops and sessions to inform American Indians of the impact and to assist them in will planning. For more information visit the American Indian Law Clinic website.
Expanding the Horizons: Indian Fusion Music School Workshop Outreach Program
Associate Professor Paul Erhard
Target Audience: K-12 schools in metro Denver and Southern Colorado
Professor Erhard, in collaboration with Annada Prasanna Pattanaik and Muthu Kumar, classical musicians from India, will give an interactive presentation of Indian classical fusion music to approximately 20 schools in metro-Denver and Southern Colorado. The school presentations include the performance of Indian raga-based compositions, fusion performance of the Western music of J.S. Bach, student participation in “learning through singing” the notes and melodic phrases of a raga melody, student participation in singing, counting, and clapping some of the rhythms used in Indian music, and a question and answer session. For more information visit the Atmic Vision website.