Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly impacted teaching and learning in K-12 settings, as many public schools lacked the technological tools and techniques needed to support effective virtual meetings and online learning. In this article, we explore the impact of the pandemic on Youth Built Change (YBC), a STEM-pipeline partnership between two high schools and a university. In YBC university researchers work with high school juniors to conduct research on substance abuse and addiction in their local school communities. As a school-university partnership which emphasizes multiple types of collaboration (e.g., among students within research teams, between research teams and teachers, between research teams and university research mentors, and between teachers and university research mentors), YBC challenged traditional approaches to teaching and learning before the pandemic. In light of the ways in which the pandemic exacerbated those challenges, and brought forth new ones, this article addresses tools and strategies that were used in YBC to engage students as researchers, insights gained about collaborative work in a virtual environment, and the impact of this year on the YBC program going forward.
Highlights
When schools and businesses went virtual as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring of 2020, all aspects of life were disrupted
Funded by the National Institutes of Health through a Science Education Partnership Award, Youth Built Change (YBC) is a program focused on increasing diversity in STEM professions by introducing scientific research opportunities to high school students from underrepresented populations
We examine the implementation of YBC during the global pandemic, from Spring 2020 through Spring 2021
Summary
When schools and businesses went virtual as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring of 2020, all aspects of life were disrupted. In previous years Morrow students have worked with members of the local health department, and Plainfield students have worked with district administrators during various phases of the research process such as: gathering preliminary information to help inform research question generation; building relationships with liaisons to gain access to specific populations of interest; and sharing research results with those who are empowered to take actionable steps based on the research results. Since our participating students are members of the adolescent community in which substance abuse is a growing concern, and many of them report first-hand experience with family members who have become addicted, they are key stakeholders Stakeholders such as building principals and school district superintendents become participants when they’re engaged with students in problem-solving, especially at the point of turning research implications into action. These events (displayed in Table 1) serve as important progress benchmarks along the research process
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