2019 Annual Report

“

This grant helped me offer these opportunities that will last a lifetime. The hope is that the experience will encourage these students to pursue science in their remaining years of high school as well as potentially college and careers!” JEREMY JONAS Tucson High Magnet School Tucson, Arizona

SEINING SAMPLES Students from Hinckley, Minn., collect a kick net sample to study macroinvertebrates in the Grindstone River.

Encouraging Students to Pursue Science How does a student go from “I hate bugs, I hate being outside and I hate being dirty,” to petting a lizard, watching nectar-feeding bats just three feet away and taking soil core samples? STEM Research Grants

Jeremy Jonas, an educator at Tucson High Magnet School in Arizona, seems to have found an answer. Now in his 11th year of teaching, he instructs 10th to 12th graders in biotechnology and advanced research methods. Jeremy is also the director of the school’s summer research program, Science and Nature in Tandem for Youth (SANI- TY), which is held at the Southwestern Research Station in the Chiricahua Mountains of Portal, Ariz. In 2019, Jere- my received a $5,000 STEM Research

Grant from the Society to procure new equipment for his classroom lab and to fund student transportation to SANITY. The program introduces participants to professionals in field ecology, ornithology, herpetolo- gy, entomology, mammalogy and astronomy through authentic hands- on research opportunities. Over the course of a week, students work side by side with scientists in all of these fields and finish with an independent research project.

The Society’s STEM Research Grants program provides mini grants of up to $5,000 to educators like Jeremy seek- ing to better empower their students to pursue authentic STEM research projects.

TWO TRUTHS & A LIE Students from Jasper County Middle School in Georgia record heart rate and temperature as they play Two Truths and a Lie.

COMPARING COLORS This 9th grader from Kansas is using a color comparison box that contains a disc and two samples of soil solution. By matching the colors, the disc inside the box gives you a reading of how much nitrogen is in the soil sample.

FIELD STUDY Students complete their first field ecology investigation with soil core sampling in collaboration with Dr. Betsy Arnold’s lab at the University of Arizona.

34 |  2019 ANNUAL REPORT  | STEM Research Grants

Society for Science & the Public |  2019 ANNUAL REPORT  | 35