The STAR Program: an innovative approach to teaching the scientific method to high school students

Although many high school students have heard of the scientific method and can name its separate steps - make observations, develop a hypothesis, collect data, analyze the data, and write up the results - few students have actually used this method to study the world around them. And while some classroom science projects do address the entire process, schools are often limited by time, location, or resources. As a result, student science projects usually focus on only part of the scientific process. Student Training in Aquatic Research (STAR) was created to address this need and to offer students the opportunity to experience science in an outdoor setting. The program parallels what teachers are teaching in the classroom and guides students while they develop their own research project at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), a 2900-acre research facility of the Smithsonian Institution in Edgewater, Maryland. Working with scientists and state-of-the-art equipment, students learn about scientific research as well as ecology in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. We have found, however, that both students and instructors have also learned some more intangible lessons about doing real research in the field. This paper describes how the program works, the organizations and people who help make it happen, how the program reaches its goals, and what we´ve learned about teaching science to high school students.