Community College Students Participate in Rice Data Science Program

Community college students

This spring, 77 Houston community college students joined Rice University faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate and undergraduate students to explore topics from data science applications to sustainability.

This program, made possible by a generous gift from Google, consisted of three two-hour data science workshops and a six-hour Sustainability Day workshop in which Rice scholars traveled to Houston Community College, Lone Star College and San Jacinto College to share their research and mentor students through solving real-world, data-intensive sustainability challenges. The program culminated with a shared poster session at Rice University, where each student presented a reflection poster on their experience in the program.

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A SHARED EXCITEMENT: Rice scholars visited community colleges around Houston to share their research and mentor students on data science.

This program was a pilot collaboration between the School of Engineering and Computing, the Sustainability Institute, the Glasscock School of Continuing Education and area community colleges. Community college students received a stipend to enable their participation in the program and a micro-credential in environmental data science from the Glasscock School.

Principal investigators Risa Myers, associate teaching professor in the Department of Computer Science; Carrie Masiello, director of the Rice Sustainability Institute and Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences; and Canek Phillips, research scientist in the School of Engineering and Computing, were excited about this opportunity to get to know area community college students and to share the novel and exciting work being done at Rice. At each school, the staff emphasized to Rice presenters the value of this program in providing area community college students with access to topics and skills not always available at their schools. These programs also help students strengthen their portfolios and applications to four-year colleges, where many hope to transfer when they complete their associate’s degree.

One major program goal was to understand the educational impact of teaching data science in a sustainability context. The program included a study of the impact of the curriculum on students’ scientific identity and likelihood of persistence in the sciences. Because up to 50% of community college students may be food insecure, the program assessed the relationship between scientific persistence and whether or not students’ basic needs are being met.

“The enthusiasm and creativity of these students has made the program a real joy,” said Masiello. “It has also been a great opportunity for the Rice student and postdoc program participants to strengthen their teaching and public speaking skills.”

Beyond educating a cohort of 77 students, this program generated a strong preliminary data set on data science teaching methods that will be useful for developing future funding to host similar programs.

Risa B. Myers
Associate Teaching Professor
Department of Computer Science

Carrie Masiello
Director
Rice Sustainability Institute and Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

RICE AT LARGE

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