The STEM RISE Program at teach HOUSTON: Connecting Inquiry-Based Teaching and Mentoring Through STEM and Medicine

The STEM Research Inquiry Summer Experience program is a collaboration between the University of Houston's (UH) College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics teachHOUSTON program, the new College of Medicine at UH, and Jack Yates High School in Houston's Third Ward. The program aims to combat the lack of minority representation in STEM fields by involving Jack Yates High School students in an immersive opportunity to collaborate with STEM undergraduates (preservice teachers), medical students, and STEM faculty. This poster presentation will include sample 5E inquiry-based lessons, derived from medical research, that incorporate culturally responsive pedagogy. Preservice teachers will share how their engagement with research labs and medical student mentors helped inform their teaching practices to the high school students, as well as transferable strategies for acquiring students' funds of knowledge. Finally, preservice STEM teachers will provide their takeaways from participating in the program's informal learning experience and the newly reimagined research methods course.