Curriculum & content

7) Students make connections between the STEM content they are learning and societal issues that impact local and global communities and ecosystems. 

Students examine the relationship between the content they are learning and current issues and events.

• Read The Equity Ethic: Black and Latinx College Students Reengineering Their STEM Careers toward Justice to understand the importance of connecting to issues related to students’ own communities.

• Bring awareness to the ways in which this program of study can impact community issues like environmental racism (potable water, incinerators and landfills, road construction and displacement of people, gentrification), medical racism (experimentation, pulse oximeters, healthcare algorithms), climate change/crisis.

Students participate in a course-aligned service-learning project to impact the local community, thereby contributing to large-scale issues.

• Spotlight community leaders in students’ future careers: students interview community leaders or invite guest speakers.

• Introductory information about service learning What is service learning? 

• WCC Service Learning 

• WWU Center for Community Learning

• UTRGV Service Learning

Students identify how the STEM content they are learning might impact the societal issues they care about.

• Implement Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CURE) in your courses. Introductory information available at What is a CURE?

• Unit from the Underrepresented Curriculum that helps students identify potential actions Student-led action projects lesson.