New NSF award propels UB’s STEMCyclists into its next phase

$1.24 million grant will expand hands-on STEM learning through bicycling for youth across Western New York

A new $1,239,399 National Science Foundation award will expand the University at Buffalo’s STEMCyclists program, bringing its hands-on science and engineering education experiences to more young people across Western New York while allowing researchers to study how participants’ learning and identities develop over time.

The three-year project, “STEMCyclists: Advancing Youth STEM Learning through Bicycle Engineering and Biomechanics,” runs through August 2029. It is led by Noemi Waight, professor of science education in GSE’s Department of Learning and Instruction, with co-principal investigators Ryan Rish, GSE associate professor of learning and instruction, and Jennifer Tripp, PhD ’21, assistant professor of adolescence science education at SUNY Geneseo.

“The STEMCyclists team thanks the National Science Foundation for this support,” said Waight.

Launched in 2022, the STEMCyclists program uses bicycles and bicycling to help young people explore science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Participants rebuild and personalize bicycles to take home and design prototypes of bike helmets to learn scientific and engineering concepts while riding through and studying their communities.

The program’s first five summers were sustained through a partnership with UB’s Science and Technology Entry Program (UB STEP), GObike Buffalo and several funding sources. The new NSF award gives the team the stability to plan across multiple years, return to a two-week summer format and serve at least 32 young people each year from urban, suburban and rural communities across Western New York.

“For the last five years, we've done this work by patching together lots of different resources to make it happen,” Waight said. “The fact that we can plan and have the funding from the NSF is significant, and it's critical to this work.”

The funding will support bicycles, helmets and other equipment, as well as the instructors, research, ride chaperones and community mentors who help participants rebuild, maintain and safely ride their bikes on city streets and bike paths. In addition to UB STEP, longstanding project partners include GObike Buffalo, Slow Roll Buffalo and East Side Bike Club. Community mentors, who include retired special education teachers, artists, urban planners and veterans, have also helped shape the program. For example, Darryl “Rodam” Marks, who has been with the program since its inception, started each day greeting the camp participants, “Good morning kings and queens, good morning scientists and engineers.”

Building from youth and community strengths

Although the NSF award marks a new chapter, the researchers are not simply repeating the same program on a larger scale. They have continued to refine STEMCyclists alongside participating youth and community partners, using what they have learned to shape each new iteration.

This new phase will place an even greater emphasis on the knowledge, experiences and interests young people bring with them. Researchers will examine how participants and returning youth mentors develop and transfer their understanding of STEM phenomena with everyday technologies, as well as how they come to view themselves as scientists, engineers, mechanics, cyclists and community members.

“The funds allow us to engage in evidence-based research around the ways in which this kind of program facilitates teaching, learning and play, but also the ways in which we can document the identity transformations that our youth undergo as they have these experiences,” said Waight. “This is important because it gives us multiple years of data to speak to evidence-based frameworks and thus robust transformations.”

The team has already seen how a different learning environment can reveal strengths that might be missed elsewhere. Waight recalled one participant whom the team had been cautioned might have difficulty remaining engaged. Instead, he stayed involved throughout the program and became one of its most engaged participants, returning in subsequent years as a peer mentor.

“He just bloomed within this space,” Waight said. “When our youth have opportunities for hands-on learning and problem solving, there are so many more possibilities for them than they would ordinarily have in more traditional settings. It reinforces that our program extends from human- and more-than-human-centered engineering and science education frameworks.”

Graduate students have also been central to both the program and the research emerging from it. Waight says that Fatemeh Mozaffari, Stacy Scheunemann, Finn Goehrig and Justin Crandall have been central to both the program and the research emerging from it.

A rolling classroom

Another new focus of the program is biomechanics.

“We’ve been looking at the bike as an assemblage of simple machines,” Rish said. “Now we’re also focusing on students’ own biomechanical contribution to those systems and how their bodies interact with the bike and their embodied movement through different places, spaces, neighborhoods and communities. This shifts us from a focus on the bicycle to the whole ecosystem, people and community included.”

That movement through the community is central to STEMCyclists. During curated rides, participants encounter scientific, social and cultural phenomena beyond the boundaries of a traditional classroom. Alongside community mentors, they visit sites of learning, work with community organizations and explore STEM assets in the region’s natural and built environments.

“Learning is on the move,” Rish said. “Rather than thinking about learning as being contained within a classroom or the context of our camp, we’re a rolling classroom.”

The program also asks young people to consider how communities are designed, who can move through them safely and how bicycles can provide access to spaces that may previously have felt distant or unfamiliar. Safe-cycling instruction by League Cycling Instructors—along with support from community mentors, instructors and ride chaperones—makes that exploration possible.

Tripp has been involved with STEMCyclists since its conception, when she was a doctoral student and graduate assistant at GSE working with Waight as her advisor. In this new phase, she will share responsibility for leading and managing the project and contribute to curriculum development, implementation, research and dissemination.

“It is important to see this program continue from these roots, to grow, blossom and endure for years to come, strengthened by the collective wisdom and complementary experiences that our team brings,” said Tripp. “I hope youth and educators co-construct deepened understandings about STEM phenomena as they engage in the related practices and joy of building bicycles, cycling and applying what they have learned to better understand themselves, each other and their community in asset-based ways.”

Creating pathways for young people

The longer research period will allow the team to follow young people who return to STEMCyclists in new roles. Some participants have remained involved for as many as three years, first attending the program and later becoming mentors, teachers, lead mechanics and co-designers.

“We get to see growth over time—not just their command, proficiency and expertise in STEM, but also their social development,” Rish said. “We watch them become leaders, teachers, lead mechanics and co-designers with us.”

According to the research team, the program’s impact is visible when young people carry their skills and confidence into other parts of their lives. Waight recalls one participant who drew himself when asked to draw an engineer. When she asked why, he explained that one of the community mentors—Darryl “Rodam” Marks—told the group every day that they were scientists and engineers.

“The knowledge, expertise, background and care that come into this space magnify tremendously, and our students reflect that back as well,” Waight said. “This work happens because of these people.”