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SIRIUS Project College of Natural Science & Mathematics

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SIRIUS Project Summary

The Sustainable Interdisciplinary Research to Inspire Undergraduate Success (SIRIUS) I Project selected 18 courses to redesign focused on a common theme - the human impacts of the American River Ecosystem.

Twelve courses across the biology curriculum were re-designed along 3 scientific threads: Bacterial Diversity, Mycorrhizal Fungi and Toxicology. Two courses from Chemistry, Geology and Environmental Sciences were also re-designed as part of the project. Using the critical design elements of Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs), the labs for these 18 courses include Scientific Practices, Novel Discovery and Relevance beyond the classroom, Collaboration and Iteration.

The SIRIUS I Project was supported by the National Science Foundation, W. M. Keck Foundation and the California State University Program for Education and Research in Biotechnology.

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Project Goals

  • Goal 1: To provide high-impact research experiences to 100% of our biology students.
  • Goal 2: To develop a collaborative, interactive community of faculty, staff and students studying an important local scientific problem.
  • Goal 3: To scaffold curriculum to provide students with multiple opportunities to build research skills and view a problem from different perspectives.
  • Goal 4: To help the Sacramento regional community sustain an important local treasure.

Faculty Learning Community

The SIRIUS Faculty Learning Community was a forum for faculty to learn to design, implement and assess Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs).

Major activities include:

  1. A one-week Summer Institute in June 2015
  2. Course, science thread and whole group meetings throughout the academic year
  3. Two-day Peer Evaluation Workshops in June 2016, 2017, 2018
  4. Online collaboration via course management system (SacCT)

FLC Teams:

During FLC workshops, participants weree provided with the time and space to work in their course- and scientific thread-based teams as they developed and revised their CURE curricula.

Scientific Thread Teams:

  • Introductory Courses and Toxicology: BIO1, BIO2, BIO127, BIO187
  • Fungi and Data Analysis: BIO100, BIO128, BIO160, BIO167, BIO180
  • Microbiome: BIO184, BIO139, BIO145
  • Abiotic Research: CHEM1a, CHEM31, GEOL10L, GEOL127, ENVS121, ENVS130

Evaluation and Outcomes:

The impacts of the SIRIUS FLC were evaulated using five levels of professional development assessment:

  • Participation
  • Satisfaction
  • Learning
  • Application
  • Impacts on Student Learning

Approximately 40 faculty, staff and students from the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Geology and Environmental Studies participated in the SIRIUS FLC, which was initiated in June 2015 with the SIRIUS Summer Institute (SI).

Project Outcomes

For a detailed description of the FLC and some early outcomes, please see:

K.K. McDonald, A.R. Martin, C.P. Watters, T.E. Landerholm. 2019. “A Faculty Development Model for Transforming a Department’s Laboratory Curriculum with Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences.” Journal of College Science Teaching, 48(3), 14-23.