Research

2025

Citizen Science: DNA barcoding of insects and plants in different public settings in the Santa Barbara Area 

Alana Deo, Alexandra Kinne, Jeffry Petracca, Dave Micklos and Gulistan Tansik 

We have developed a glucose sensing authentic inquiry module for high school students using an electrochemical sensor and glucose oxidase to detect glucose. This 5-day module focuses on equipping students with critical thinking and data analysis skills, while demonstrating the real-world applications of electrochemistry, biochemistry, and medicine. Each day of the module highlights how these fields collaboratively address complex, real-world problems. Beyond scientific skills, the program emphasizes cultivating practical abilities in scientific inquiry and research methodology, as well as heightening their interest in science through helping students grasp the importance of science subjects via their real-world applications. Under the mentorship of experienced professionals, students
engage in hands-on experiments, analyze data, and present their findings. By participating in this module, students not only strengthen their academic capabilities but also develop a passion for inquiry-driven learning and interdisciplinary collaboration. Students in high school are often not taught the practical value of the science topics they are learning, and thus may quickly lose interest or lack motivation to learn. However, by tying these topics to real world applications, such as medicine, and engaging students with hands-on experimentation, it may be possible to reignite their interest. We are assessing whether students’ interest in science is improved through their involvement with SciTrek in general, and this module in particular. The results of this study will help us evaluate the efficacy of the module and guide future improvements in how we engage students with these STEM topics. SciTrek, founded in 2011 by Dr. Norbert Reich and Dr. Darby Feldwin, is a UCSB based outreach program whose mission is to increase scientific knowledge, interest, and critical thinking skills for K-12 students through hands-on experiential learning, and guided inquiry. Since its launch, SciTrek has worked closely
with the Santa Barbara School District (59.9% Latino, 31.1%
White, 2.9% Asian, 0.7% Black, 4.9% Multiracial, 0.2% Native,
31.5% economically disadvantaged (US News)) and private
schools to bring engaging science modules to local students of all socioeconomic backgrounds. For this study, we continue to work with high school students from this school district and population. Our methods utilize tests to measure content knowledge and science critical thinking skills (ex. Analyzing data, determining if results are statistically significant), and surveys that measure perceptions of science and their role in science (ex. “I believe electrochemistry can be used to solve
problems in medicine”, “I see myself as a scientist”).
This project is funded by grants given to SciTrek by NIH
and DOD. NIH grant number: RNCG-RNNH86-8-444012-
23686. DOD grant number: 21000306/HQ00342110011.

Bringing CRISPR-Based Inquiry into the High
School

Daniel Wong-Moon, Lekha Reddy, Trisha Dharmapuri, Melina Magno, Drew McDonald, Gulistan Tansik, and Norbert Reich

SciTrek is an outreach program from the University of California at Santa Barbara that engages K-12 students in authentic inquiry guided by university students. Scitrek has since worked closely with the Santa Barbara School District (59.9% Latino, 31.1% White, 2.9% Asian, 0.7% Black, 4.9% Multiracial, 0.2% Native, 31.5% economically disadvantaged (US News)) and private schools to bring engaging science modules to local students of all socioeconomic backgrounds. Prior results of the SciTrek program have demonstrated significant improvement in the three metrics of 1) students’ content understanding, 2) critical thinking, and 3) attitudes toward science. We have developed a SciTrek educational module on CRISPR spanning five days of in-class activities guided by five or more university students. Students learn about the mechanics of CRISPR, gene editing, and real-life applications such as modern medicine through interactive, hands-on activities. To engage students, we have created an inquiry-based module with hands-on laboratory and experimental activities. High school students often lose focus when directly lectured on complex scientific topics, especially if the real-world implications are unclear. The module allows students to generate their own hypotheses, test these, collect data, and then present a poster on their results to their peers. Our goals are to increase conceptual understanding of these topics, understanding the importance of gene editing and their real-world applications, and increase students’ interest in science. After completing the module, the students are quantitatively surveyed on content understanding, their attitudes towards science, and critical thinking skills.
Evaluations of all three performance metrics are ongoing. The results will help us evaluate the module’s effectiveness and guide future improvements in student engagement. The students grow E. coli bacteria on LB agar plates and monitor the color and growth of colonies containing different CRISPR guideDNA plasmids. Different plasmids direct the Cas9 protein to modify different genes of the LacZ gene, which codes for the digestion of lactase. If the modification is successful, the LacZ gene is nonfunctional, and the colonies cannot digest lactase. The colonies are fed X-Gal, a milk sugar that produces a blue substrate when digested. Students hypothesize if different guideRNAs produce blue (successful modification) or white colonies (unsuccessful modification) based on the information given about the plasmids. Using critical thinking skills and the knowledge gained from pre-activities in the module, the students can make accurate predictions and learn from the success of their hypotheses.
This project is funded by grants given to SciTrek by NIH
and DOD. NIH grant number: RNCG-RNNH86-8-444012-
23686. DOD Grant number: 21000306/HQ00342110011.

2025

Citizen Science: DNA barcoding of insects and plants in different public settings in the Santa Barbara Area 

Alana Deo, Alexandra Kinne, Jeffry Petracca, Dave Micklos and Gulistan Tansik 

In collaboration with the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory DNA Learning Center, we are engaging the public in the study of local biodiversity through DNA barcoding, a technique that enables species identification using genetic markers. By focusing on invertebrate and plant species, we aim to increase community awareness of ecological diversity and contribute to an ongoing effort supported by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Participants conduct polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gel electrophoresis and also collect and analyze DNA samples from local species. The DNA is sequenced and archived. This project
fosters scientific literacy, creates a collaborative approach to documenting local ecological patterns, and exposes the K-12 students and adults to biotechnology methods. We are running this project at multiple locations in the Santa Barbara area, including the Santa Barbara Zoo, the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum and Sea Center, the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, and the Earth Day Festival where children and families have the opportunity to collect insect and plant samples and to run PCR and electrophoresis according to the Citizen Science program’s protocols. Samples are sent to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for sequencing. The ultimate goal is to generate a collection of DNA sequences to better understand species patterns in the Santa Barbara area and assess whether public engagement in these ecological efforts effectively increases scientific education and influences views toward science. We have refined the protocols provided by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Participants complete pre- and post-event surveys to assess how engagement affects attitudes toward science and ecological efforts. Amplified DNA with positive results are sequenced via Azenta, analyzed using DNA Subway, and published on GenBank. This project not only contributes to documenting local biodiversity but also demonstrates how citizen science can effectively foster scientific literacy and collaboration while advancing conservation efforts. Involving the public in hands-on DNA barcoding demonstrates the impact of community-driven research in fostering ecological awareness.

Funding Information: This project is funded by grants given to SciTrek by NIH. NIH grant number: RNCG-
RNNH86-8-444012-23686. We are collaborating with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory DNA Learning Center. They are
representing the NIH SEPA, Citizen DNA Barco.

Fostering Positive STEM Outcomes for Undergraduates: The Impact of Mentoring K-12 Students

Nandini Kuppa, Nora Thomas, Desiree Vu de Leon, Sophie Esquinas, Verut Kooanupong and Vanessa Woods
 

Retention of female undergraduate students in STEM is crucial for fostering innovation, equity, and a broader societal impact. However, prior literature suggests that female-identifying students suffer representation issues, with many scientific role models being limited to males (Li & Koedel, 2017). Previous literature shows that STEM identity is closely linked to retention in the field, and mentoring has been shown to support scientific identity in students. Previous research illustrates that peer-mentoring programs in STEM are effective in helping traditionally underrepresented students (including women) feel more comfortable in a college environment (Trujillo et al., 2015). Other mentoring programs show that all students felt more at ease and prepared for scientific careers with a female STEM mentor (Moghe et al., 2021). Though prior studies focus on the effects mentoring has on mentees, few studies explore the impact of STEM mentoring on the undergraduates serving as mentors to younger students. SciTrek is a science-based outreach program that sends undergraduate mentors into local K-12 classrooms to guide students in multi-day, mentored, hands-on science experiments where students have voice and choice in the design. Program data indicates that the undergraduate mentors have a positive impact on the K-12 students, and we explored the effect of this mentoring on the STEM undergraduates. We predict that serving as a mentor has the potential to positively impact undergraduates’ science identity, STEM career interest, and confidence in teaching science. To explore this hypothesis, we have qualitatively coded an existing data set of undergraduate volunteer pre- and post-program participation surveys in AY 2023-24, and through qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews. Preliminary analysis of a small sample suggests that the undergraduate mentors are positively impacted by their mentoring experiences, and women often mentioned the importance of serving as a role model. We would like to explore this finding in a larger data set, and with in-depth interviews. Such data has the potential to provide evidence-based practices that can increase retention of women in STEM fields.  

Developing and Assessing Critical Thinking and Conclusion-Making through Science Outreach

Tate Universe, Madeleine Ha, Avery Muhammed, Sumana Hiremath, Madison Blankenhorn, and Vanessa Woods

Scientific literacy, a crucial competency for engaging with and interpreting scientific information effectively. Understanding how to interpret scientific information is a domain-specific skill which is linked to the domain-general critical thinking skill (Viera et al., 2011). Evidence-based research surrounding critical thinking skills in primary schools reveals instructional activities scaffolding as an essential pedagogical approach for fostering critical thinking in elementary students. Making valid conclusions from data is a specific and actionable way to increase scientific literacy that can be further explored as a hierarchy of skills. Foundational to conclusion-making is the ability to apply Control of Variables Strategy (CVS); understanding you can only change one variable at a time for valid conclusion-making. Previous research has suggested that conclusion-making is typically introduced in middle school, however our educational outreach program, SciTrek, has a 5^th grade curriculum that successfully fosters scientific inquiry and conclusion-making skills in students before middle school. We seek to validate a hierarchy of learning components which underlie conclusion-making, through an assessment series assigned to fifth graders. SciTrek delivers engaging, cooperative activities that are multi-day, mentored, hands-on science experiments where students have voice and choice in the design. Specifically, we investigate if student performance in conclusion-making improves as a result of taking part in the SciTrek modules, and use path analysis of students’ assessments to distinguish foundational skills (e.g. differentiating claims from data), that should contribute to the students’ abilities to identify and design valid conclusion parameters from various representations of data. Additionally, we hypothesize pictorial representations of experimental designs may enhance accessibility and comprehension for students who face challenges with text-heavy formats, being tables containing numerical and textual data without accompanying graphics. For the 2023-2024 school year, SciTrek has performed modules with 5 schools in Santa Barbara county, in 9 classrooms collecting data on roughly 530 students. We will present results of our path analysis to inform best practices for scaffolding conclusion-making ability and underscore SciTrek's impact in enhancing scientific reasoning skills, providing actionable results for refining instructional strategies within the classroom.

2024

Role Models Matter: Investigating Students' Science Perceptions and Identity Using Draw-A-Scientist

Chiamaka Utom, Antoinette Obiefuna, Luke Winter, Mateo Requejo-Tejada, and Vanessa Woods
 

Despite efforts to promote gender equality in STEM, there remains a persistent gender gap that seems to be related to gender biases from early childhood. Students' ideas about who can do science can impact women’s beliefs about their competence and identity in science, and male bias hinders female retention in STEM fields. SciTrek is a science outreach program designed to give students authentic science experiences. Guided by college students mentors, this program aims to enhance student’s confidence and interest in science through guided discovery learning and experimental design. The Draw A Scientist Task (DAST) is a measure used to gauge childrens’ perceptions of who comes to mind when they think of a scientist. Using the DAST as a measure, we investigated if SciTrek’s use of diverse college student mentors might have an influence on girls’ perceptions of scientists. For this study, we ran a mixed linear model analysis on a coded data set of students’ perceptions of scientists on 2nd through 6th grade boys and girls. In the 2021 data set, we asked the students to write who their scientist was after they finished the drawing. Results revealed that girls were more likely to draw SciTrek volunteers (college student mentors) than boys, and boys were more likely to draw famous scientists than girls. Prior research suggests girls tend to draw fewer scientists than boys in early elementary school, and boys tend to draw men as scientists at all stages of elementary school, which increases with age (Miller et al., 2018). Our results were inconsistent with this finding, as 2^nd and 3^rd grade girls drew women as scientists more often than boys, but this rate decreased between grades 4 and 6. 2^nd, 5^th, and 6^th grade boys drew men as scientists more than girls, but this rate declines in grades 3 and 4. These findings suggest mentors who align with underrepresented groups, like women in STEM, could foster higher science interest in girls, combat their decline in science identity, and promote greater female interest in STEM in the future.