Program might help high school students pursue science careers

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MSU professor Barbara Schneider is using a $1 million federal grant to change high schoolers’ career dreams into reality.

After 20 years of research with high school students, Schneider is using the grant, divided throughout three years and provided by the National Science Foundation, to keep students motivated during and after their high school careers.

By helping plan their high school academic path, Schneider hopes to increase the number of students who attend college.

Her program, Transforming Interests into STEM Careers, or TISC, helps students interested in science, technology, engineering and math careers (STEM) stay focused and stay interested in those areas of study until college.

Generally, many students are interested in STEM-based careers, Schneider said. The goal of the program, however, is to maintain and increase that interest throughout high school and into college.

The purpose of the program is to promote a schoolwide college-going culture in which all students in a school are encouraged to visualize themselves as college applicants, particularly in the STEM fields, with their teachers, administrators and parents sharing these expectations.

Schneider said she has identified certain kinds of practices that will help students go to college who normally wouldn’t go. The program’s proposal calls for college counseling throughout high school as well as materials to help prepare students for college entrance exams.

Course counseling and advising will be used with ninth-grade students to design a four-year high school plan that focuses on math and science.

“I think high schools are different kinds of places and what we hope to learn in this study is what kinds of practices will work effectively for future generations,” Schneider said.

The program will follow ninth-graders through high school and into postsecondary education in one rural school and one urban school. The goal is to get two area schools — Leslie High School for the rural intervention and Everett High School for the urban intervention — Schneider’s assistant Christina Mazuca said. The schools were chosen because both have lower-than-expected college attendance rates, according to the program’s proposal.

Mazuca said proposals to both schools have been approved but a date to start the study has not been finalized.

“If we give STEM resources to a high school with limited resources … what we would try and understand is what are the most effective resources to sustain interest in STEM classes for future students,” Schneider said.

Keeping students interested in STEM careers is something many scholars find vital to research for future students generations, education professor Suzanne Wilson said.

“The nation has serious problems getting students involved and staying involved in STEM pathways,” Wilson said.

Schneider’s passion for improving adolescents’ futures has been ongoing for many years, Mazuca said.

“To receive this federal funding is a big deal for her because she has been researching this topic for so long and this has been a particular interest
and passion of hers,” she said.

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