TCU Chemistry Club has established a once-per-week science club at Burton Hill Elementary School in Fort Worth to provide 16-30 3rd-5th grade students the opportunity for academic and personal growth. We provide hands-on learning experiences, foster scientific curiosity, and teach them to learn to think like a scientist through engaging experiments in chemistry, physics, and biology. Beyond academics, our focus extends to providing mentorship, building confidence, and encouraging students to pursue a STEM career path. The consistent, engaging activities require the TCU Chemistry Club to effectively recruit volunteers, organize activities, and communicate throughout the project. This presentation will focus on qualitative analysis of the project by exploring the meaningful relationships developed, students' transformative experiences, and their personal growth, showcasing our commitment to impactful STEM education in 3rd-5th grade students.

The Beautiful Feet Ministries Clinic & the True Worth Clinic are two nonprofit clinics that provide free, comprehensive medical and dental care for the homeless and underserved communities in the Southside area of Fort Worth. The patients served by these clinics encounter unique challenges in their medical journey, stemming from impoverished living conditions, financial instability, and restricted access to medications.

The goal of the “Medication Compliance Initiative” is to enhance patients’ ability to adhere to prescribed medication regimens. This initiative has introduced waterproof bags and cross-body fanny packs into the clinics, offering patients a secure means to store and safeguard their medications from adverse weather conditions, potential theft, and additional unforeseen circumstances. These intentional carry solutions not only ensure physical integrity of medications, but also empower patients to seamlessly incorporate their treatment plans into their daily lives, promoting better health outcomes and overall well-being for our patients.

Oral reading accuracy is an important measurement to assess language proficiency in educational settings. We aim to quantify misclassification rates when reading scores are assessed by humans versus an AI scoring system using speech recognition. The project breaks down misclassification rates into two components: True Positive, where human or AI systems correctly identify the correct words, and True Negative, where they correctly identify the incorrect words. For each reader, and conditional on the true score, the number of true positives and true negatives is assumed to follow binomial distributions. We propose two solutions to estimate misclassification rates, the first model assumes true scores are available, while the second model explores binomial and Poisson distribution structures for true scores with the minimization of normed Euclidean distance when the true scores are not observed. The models are evaluated through a study of elementary school students using ten passages of different lengths and difficulty.

Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) is evidenced-based nutrition therapy provided by a Registered Dietitian/Registered Nutritionist (RD/RDN) to help treat medical conditions. The purpose of the study was to evaluate current understanding and perception of the RD/RDN role in healthcare among undergraduate pre-health students. Following IRB approval, a convenience sample of TCU pre-health students (n=94) completed an electronic survey. Data were coded into and analyzed using SPSS 29. Over 23% (n=22) of participants had taken a nutrition course. Participants were asked their opinions regarding the importance of the RD/RDN in improving quality of care for patients with a variety of diseases including heart disease, diabetes, obesity, stroke, cancer, chronic kidney disease, Parkinson’s disease, Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome, eating disorders, and ulcerative colitis. Over 55% (n=52) reported that the RD/RDN would be important in the care in all of these conditions. When asked if they would either refer a patient with a specific disease to an RD/RDN for nutrition counseling, provide a nutrition handout, briefly educate patient on nutrition themselves, or recommend online nutrition information from an official source, over half of participants would refer to an RD/RDN for obesity, celiac disease, heart disease, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, Crohn’s Disease, irritable bowel syndrome, eating disorders and ulcerative colitis. Fewer than half of participants would refer patients with Parkinson’s Disease, cancer and stroke to an RD/RDN. Less than a quarter of pre-health students have taken a nutrition course and therefore most are likely unfamiliar with MNT recommendations appropriate for various chronic diseases.

Almost 7% of seniors living in Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington were food insecure in 2020, while 2.4% were classified as having very low food security. A cross sectional descriptive design study evaluated current factors contributing to food insecurity (FI) among older adults living in vulnerable areas in Tarrant County, Texas. Sites were identified using demographic information collected from US Census Bureau public data repositories and covered household income, percent with a disability, percent without a car, age >65 years, percent >65 years with a disability, and percent >65 years in poverty. Meals On Wheels (MOW) of Tarrant County administration identified three at risk community sites, which were Southside Community Center in Fort Worth (site 1), Bedford YMCA in Bedford (site 2), and Magnolia Apartments in Arlington (site 3). Following IRB approval, researchers interviewed 48 older adults at these sites. Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed using SPSS and NVivo, respectively. Participants were 74.1+/-7.7 years of age with a range of 61-93 years. Over 83% (n=40) were female, while 16.7% (n=8) were male. Participants were 58.3% (n=28) White, 33.3% (n=16) Black/African-American, and 6.3% (n=3) Asian. Over 29% (n=14) of participants identified as Hispanic. Participants (36.2%, n=17) agreed that, “Most older people I know are able to afford enough food to eat” and (66.7%, n=32) reported causes of FI related to finances including low income, loss or lack of jobs, inflation, lack of or limited government assistance. Participants at sites 1 and 2 reported that raising awareness is most needed, while those at site 3 reported that food was most needed to help older adults with FI. FI causes and barrier to resources can help identify solutions specific to improve the quality of life for older adults in these areas.