Water Quality CURE: Creating a Chemistry Success Course With a Focus on Place-Based Education and Social-Emotional Support

Abstract

It is essential to engage and retain first-year undergraduates within STEM majors to fulfill the growing workforce requirements in the United States. Both academic and non-academic factors, such as social-emotional support, affect a student’s ability and willingness to continue pursuing a STEM major. The Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) has been shown to improve student engagement; however, combining this with place-based education to connect students with their physical space and community has not been thoroughly investigated. We designed a Chemistry Success Course using various student engagement tools and employed qualitative analysis to evaluate both the perceived and actual benefits of this approach.