Salmon Camp Research Team Interim Report

Overarching evaluation questions focus on continuous improvement, the degree to which the Salmon Camp project achieves it's objectives with regards to students' skills and attitudes, as well as implementation and outcome questions. Evaluation activities are designed to probe five major areas: 1. Student Knowledge and Skills. To what extent do students gain experience with digital tools, field research, and workplace skills? 2. Student Attitudes. How are students' attitudes and self-efficacy as science students changing with involvement in Salmon Camp? How are career interests changing or deepening? Are there differences in these dispositions based on level of participation in activities? 3. Implementation. What is the fidelity of project implementation? Is the project being implemented as envisioned? What factors influence implementation? What is the level of participation? Are cultural as well as technical aspects of the project being addressed? 4. Outcomes. What impact is the project having? Are there unanticipated or ancillary impacts to the community of learners involved in Salmon Camp? How are former Salmon Campers, counselors, mentors, researchers, parents, and family members influenced by the project? 5. Continuous Improvement. How can the project improve? What is working? How can evaluation findings be most useful to the project as it unfolds? Overall, the project appears to be on track to continue making strong progress toward achieving objectives. Project leaders are commended on achievements to date. They have shown commitment to assuring project success and been responsive to evaluative feedback. The aim of this report is to further support project growth with information so that the project planners can make data-based as well as experience-based decisions. The appendix of this report includes interview protocols and surveys.