STEM outreach across West Virginia. Map displays the distribution of STEM outreach initiatives (summer camps, science centers, STEM programs, extracurricular clubs, and university-affiliated programs) across counties in West Virginia. The number of K-12 students per county for the 2020–2021 academic year is represented by the value within the county × 1,000 (data from the West Virginia Department of Education). Cooler colors indicate fewer outreach initiatives, warmer colors indicate more outreach initiatives, and no color indicates no outreach initiatives. Cross hatching indicates urban counties (data from the Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture). Table summarizes the distribution of outreach across rural versus urban counties.

Zebrafish in the education literature. Graph represents the number of publications containing the keywords “zebrafish” and “classroom” from 1990 (0 publications) to 2020 (294 publications). Data obtained from searches conducted on Google Scholar.

Students report higher science confidence after the zebrafish camp in both in-person and online formats. Graphs represent average student responses across all questions for the pre (blue bars) and post (green bars) surveys. Solid bars represent data from our 2019 in-person camp (n = 12 students), and dotted bars represent data from our 2020 online camp (n = 65 students). Answers from students were ranked on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree).

Concerns for implementing new approaches to science education as reported by HSTA teachers. Graph represents the percentage of teachers (total n = 55, rural n = 27, urban n = 28) selecting factors that might prevent them from using zebrafish or other innovative strategies as a tool for enhanced science education. Red bars represent urban teachers, and blue bars represent rural teachers. Map depicts the distribution of counties represented by the teachers (n = 24/55 counties). The color code corresponds to the color code on the graph; red counties are urban and blue counties are rural. HSTA, Health Sciences and Technology Academy.