Today’s post is written by Keighley Reisenauer, co-founder of Present your PhD and current Director of Logistics.
Do you remember when you were a child in school and the first time you learned about something that excited you? That truly made you wonder, filled you with curiosity, and opened your mind to the possibilities of the world?
Moments like these are sometimes hard to keep alive as children progress through school. Children face social stigmas or don’t receive enough support. They lose that spark or forget what it felt like. This is even more true for children who fall in love with subjects in STEM. They are told that math isn’t cool or that science is for nerds. Girls receive messages that STEM isn’t for them, and children of color often don’t see themselves represented.
Now, imagine you are a child who loves STEM, and you have the chance to meet a scientist, an engineer, a coder, or a mathematician. This one meeting may seem small, but it has the potential to keep you on-track with your interests and to pursue them through your educational career. While many of this blog’s readers are likely well past their childhood days, there is a group on Baylor’s campus with a mission to leverage those who have pursued their STEM passions and to help them share their passions with the young learners and non-STEM population of today.
Present Your PhD is an outreach student group founded and maintained by STEM graduate students at Baylor University. We develop new ways to make a difference in science education at the local level. We were inspired by the parent program at the University of Texas – Austin to bring professional-level science into classrooms and the community. Present Your PhD empowers young learners to envision themselves as future scientists and inspires the community to envision themselves as driving partners of research in STEM. We are also committed to the development of communication and presentation 
skills for graduate students.
You might ask why a group like Present Your PhD is necessary. Education systems today are limited to structures that inhibit creative thinking, exploration, and lasting retention of ideas and concepts. Research shows that young learners must be engaged with the ability to motivate, inspire curiosity, and foster supportive environments to overcome obstacles to achieving positive attitudes about STEM research and related fields. Furthermore, society endures a pervasive idea that it is possible – and easy – to separate and distill ideas presented in the media to reflect one’s personal beliefs. A leading example is the duality of arguments about vaccines: some people pick and choose the parts of science that best support their personal beliefs, treating science as something they can choose to believe in, rather than acknowledging it as fact. This confirmation bias then promotes the spread of misinformation and an inaccurate narrative about science. This is a major driver of the widespread lack of science comprehension among adults, resulting in general distrust1-3.
Present Your PhD found and grew this graduate student-organized outreach mechanism to support community connection, promote scientific literacy, include learners of all ages. There is overwhelming support for the value of hands-on, interactive education and its positive influence on memory, retention, and educational impact, which is the basis of our work1-3. For instance, negative outlooks at any age are reversible with efforts to demystify and personalize science via widespread programming, face-to-face interactions with scientists, and approachable science journalism. Our mission is to empower young learners, especially young women and underrepresented minorities, to envision themselves as future scientists and to inspire community engagement as driving partners of research in STEM.
We focus our mission through four aims:
- Early student engagement– We know that many young students may not even know a scientist. So, we designed a presentation to engage them in the process of thinking like a researcher and inspire their scientific minds. In the fall of 2018, we debuted the “What is a Scientist?” presentation to 11 Midway elementary schools, and each presentation was met with resounding enthusiasm as we taught the process of science through a simple balloon experiment.
- Building community networks– Present Your PhD was founded with the mission to bridge the Waco and the Baylor communities. We do that by collaborating with dedicated educators, communicators, and locals alike. We have been fortunate to have longstanding collaborations with schools like Vanguard Preparatory, Texas Bioscience Institute, and Mayborn Museum. We also increase our list of collaborators by an average of 58% each semester.
- Linking curriculum to research– It can be hard to answer the “why do we have to know this?” question. We do our best to match our research to what our collaborators are teaching in the classroom or to students’ interests. At the Harmony School of Innovation, Lisa Cobb teaches 11thand 12thgraders about disease biology. Before she begins her unit on cancer, our member who studies cancer presents about her work and how “real world” cancer research is done. Mrs. Cobb has reported increased interest and engagement in the unit following this presentation.
- Early career science communication and graduate leadership–Present Your PhD empowers our members have full control over their success, and, therefore, the success of our collaborations. We are proud to have a diverse and passionate member base dedicated to enhancing their graduate school experience and training. Members report successful grant acquisition because of strong broader impacts and increased fulfillment due to sharing their work with an excited audience. Our members approach their work more creatively and are able to share their ideas with broader audiences – from kindergarteners to career scientists outside their field, leading to collaborations and increased research output.
We have found positive outcomes in both our graduate student participants, as well as the community. In just two years, Present Your PhD has reached over 3,000 learners and has expanded to include 30 members from ten unique STEM departments on campus. Graduate students report successful broader impacts and increased science communication skills, due to practice in relating their research discoveries with K-12 students and providing real-world examples that will complement science topics covered in a classroom. We have also been met with outstanding appreciation from our collaborating groups as well, which include K-12 classrooms, museums, tour groups, and community events. If you would like to learn more about Present Your PhD or how to get involved, we can be reached on our website, email, or social media.
Website: https://blogs.baylor.edu/presentyourphd/
Email: presentyourphd@baylor.edu
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/presentyourphd/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PresentYourPhD
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/presentyourphd/