School of Science & Technology

Make Math REAL (a partnership between SSU and the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley) will develop and test maker-based math education curriculum for fourth and fifth grades. These Maker Learning Cycles help students see math as a tool for making sense of the world, and to understand their own power to use math to solve authentic problems. Specific goals include increased persistence in STEM among English learner students, and improved ability for teachers to see capacities of their students.

This grant supports an expansion of Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA), via four primary components:

1.    Expanding MESA recruiting and support by growing collaborations with CAASE programs (EOP, PUERTA, etc).

2.    Providing incentives for Peer Mentors, undergraduate research, and MESA Honors, to support the financial needs of BIPOC students.

3.    Developing an online interactive guide for student success, which will be tested by MESA students.

4.    Bringing more BIPOC speakers to campus to interact with MESA students.  

Recent, massive loss of kelp forests along the coast of northern California has sparked intense concern and strong impetus to restore this crucial ecosystem. This grant will support the integrated research program focused on solutions. In particular, target approaches for offsetting consequences of three key correlates of the kelp decline, which include 1) anomalously high seawater temperatures that likely induced stress in the canopy-forming bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana), 2) a widespread outbreak of the purple urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus), the dominant grazer of N.

NASA's Neurodiversity Network is a five-year program to redevelop existing NASA resources for use with neurodiverse learners, with a special focus on autistic learners. SSU is partnering with Educational Development Corporation and New York Hall of Science to test the resources with northern California high schools that specialize in autistic learners, as well as informal audiences in New York City. This program was inspired by Prof.

For over a decade, the MESA statewide grant has been supporting Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) as one of thirteen university academic support programs in public and private California Universities. The goal of MESA at SSU is to increase the number of historically underrepresented students who pursue and persist in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) related degrees and ultimately, careers.

This project is a multi-investigator interdisciplinary study using the northern elephant seal as a model system to significantly improve our understanding of the response of marine mammals to exposure from multiple anthropogenic stressors. Our team will integrate physiological and ecological approaches including immunology, stress physiology, toxicology, animal behavior, population biology, and life history theory to examine cumulative effects of exposure to multiple stressors in elephant seals.

This work combined with work along the northern California coast in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties will provide a scientific basis for evaluating the efficacy of large-scale purple urchin removal and kelp outplanting as a kelp restoration tool in the Northern California/Southern Oregon marine ecoregion, directly informing future management actions to protect this iconic underwater forests in the face of changing ocean conditions.

Terrestrial restoration has a long tradition of engaging the general public on issues relating to ecosystem decline, to the point where large swaths of the community can participate in restoration, e.g., Arbor Day planting millions of trees worldwide. To date, marine restoration, is primarily carried out through professional scientists and resource managers with very little involvement from the lay community.

The research team is particularly motivated to investigate and advance the understanding of how to design, assess and disseminate XR contents and experiences to facilitate active learning in introductory STEM courses at both 4-year and 2-year Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs).

This project will connect physiological and novel remote sensing tools to better understand the effects of wildfire and fuels management on forested ecosystems in California under a changing climate. This will integrate Dr. Bentley’s long-term research and education goals related to the responses of forests to environmental change using terrestrial laser scanning, metabolic scaling ecology, modeling and virtual reality based outreach.