13 Partnering Approaches for Community-Based Participatory K-12 Biostatistics Education

Oregon Convention Center 

Part of the mission of the University of Minnesota's Biostat Community Outreach and Engagement (BCOE) committee is to provide outreach to the Twin Cities' K-12 public schools. In this work, BCOE has adopted a community-based participatory framework in which we build relationships with local K-12 public school teachers, collaborate to understand the teachers' needs, and develop biostatistics resources that can be integrated into the existing educational structure. We share two examples of this process in practice: the development of an air quality app for high school students and the integration of biostatistics consultants into a high school biomedical research course. In the former, BCOE partnered with high school Earth science teachers to develop an R Shiny app to empower students to easily engage with Minnesota's publicly available air pollution data. In the latter, BCOE members served as biostatistical consultants for student projects in a high school biomedical research course. Drawing from BCOE's varied collaborations, we also share suggested practices for successful community-based participatory K-12 biostatistics education.