With support from rural communities and their libraries in the Four Corners Region in the Southwestern U.S., We are Water creates a place to meet and share stories about water, and explore and learn about water together. Designed for rural, Indigenous, and Latinx communities, stories, community voices and multiple ways of knowing are highlighted and woven throughout the exhibit and programs.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Dinosaurs of Antarctica is a giant screen film and outreach project that documents the work of NSF-funded researchers on expeditions to Shackleton Glacier during the 2017-2018 field season. This immersive film and companion television special will bring the past to life and engage the public, and particularly students in middle grades (6-9), with polar science through appealing, entertaining media experiences and informal learning programs. The film serves as a companion for the synonymous Antarctic Dinosaurs museum exhibition
This paper reports about an informal learning experience – Something Very Fishy (SVF) – which is focused on ocean conservation and climate change. Results from 49 elementary school student workbooks indicated that experiencing SVF improved their understanding of ocean conservation, increased their interest in pursuing science careers, but did not affect their actions towards conservation. Survey results from 40 undergraduate students who helped run SVF indicated that the more efficacious they felt about communicating marine science and the more identified they felt with the scientific
Something Very Fishy Musical Theatre STEAM Exhibit is a collaborative project pairing a ocean-themed musical theatre production with a hands-on marine science exhibit in an informal community setting. The program is designed to increase the awareness of ocean conservation issues in children grades K-5. The storyline of the musical follows the lives of Sandy Carson (marine biologist), Mr. Stu Pidder (fishermen) and a cast of marine animal puppets (Sunny, Boss and Octavia) as they navigate one disaster after another in the ocean that comes to impact their lives and livelihoods. The story is told as a bedtime story between two narrators, mother and child, home sick with a fever. As the story unfolds the rising ocean temperatures and rising fever in the child tell the story of our how the health of the ocean is inextricably linked to our own health. The theatrical production ends when the characters hatch a community-based solution to work together to save the ocean by starting an eco-tourism venture. Then the audience members then begin a imaginary eco-tour of the Florida Keys around the performing arts center where they meet artists, fishermen, park rangers, scientists, engineers, and veterinarians working to save our oceans and the marine life within. To assess the impact of our program, the children complete a pre-post survey in the form of a personal meaning map drawing of what it looks like under the ocean along with a STEM, arts, non-STEM career survey including professions they met in the show and on the virtual eco-tour. Children who participate in the program demonstrate a significant increase in understanding how humans both impact and help solve the issues facing the oceans and their connection to our changing climate and show an increased interest in STEM careers related to ocean conservation.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
How does a long-lasting, statewide, out-of- school science learning experience influence how key stakeholders think about the value of out-of-school learning and its intersection with in-school learning?
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
The project's goals are to:
Develop systems thinking skills in youth
Increase understanding of sustainable agricultural systems
Raise awareness of STEM careers related to agricultural systems
Leverage scientific research models and data for educational video games
Use the Corn-Water-Ethanol-Beef System as a model for interconnected Food, Energy, Water Systems (FEWS)
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Free-choice learning occurs when individuals make choices about what, where, how, and who they participate with in their self-motivated learning activities. This project explores how different people, living in the same geographic region, make plants and gardening a part of their lives. We explore how adult community members choose to participate in their plant and gardening interests, including: the topics and activities that interest them, with whom they participate, where, and which resources they access. This work will
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Elysa CorinJudy KokeDavid MeierAllison HuEric Jones
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Project Harvest is a co-created citizen science project that investigates the quality of household environments in Arizona communities neighboring active or legacy mining and/or toxic release. Project Harvest is a response to the community-driven questions, “Are there pollutants in harvested rainwater? Can I use the harvested rainwater for my garden?"
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
This research draws from scholarship on bonds between people and places to help understand the growing knowledge, community, and personal outcomes linked to place-based citizen science experiences.
Following an analysis of the place attachment (PAT) (an emotional bond between a person and a place) of participants in the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) citizen science program, an adapted three-dimensional model of PAT is proposed as a framework from which place-based citizen science experiences and
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Benjamin HaywoodJulia ParrishSarah InmanJackie Lindsey
This pilot and feasibility project will explore whether participation in informal science initiatives like citizen science, which is a form of Public Participation in Scientific Research, can foster or enhance participant attachment to the natural places participants investigate via these programs. The project also examines if participant attachment to place influences the development or application of critical thinking skills among adult learners. Critical thinking skills and the factors that enhance critical thinking skills are important areas of inquiry within the informal STEM learning community. Existing scholarship suggests that three components may be linked: (1) feelings of connection to specific places, (2) intentional exploration and investigation of those places (in this case via citizen science), and (3) understanding of complex socio-ecological systems, which is predicated on critical thinking skills ability. However, the degree to which these aspects are related to each other, the scale at which they occur (local to global), and the specific dimensions of place connection or informal science experiences implicated is not known. Working with the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) citizen science program, this project advances collaboration among experts from disparate fields to examine if and how citizen science contributes to increases in connection to place and higher-order critical thinking skills among participants and the potential links between those hypothesized outcomes. The ultimate goal of the project is to inform design of Public Participation in Scientific Research programming that optimizes participant learning, interest, and retention; produces societal outcomes like critical thinking in support of science literacy; and creates high quality data of the scale and grain needed to address questions and issues across the basic-applied science continuum.
This research focuses on the degree to which Public Participation in Scientific Research, specifically citizen science, may foster the presence or intensity of place attachment felt by participants for the sites and settings investigated through these programs and to what extent place attachment may be linked to higher order critical thinking skills among adult learners. A three-pronged mixed-methods research strategy will include: (1) a re-analysis of existing survey and interview data for markers of three-dimensional (personal, social, natural) place attachment as well as critical thinking skills and dispositions; (2) an assessment survey to test for the presence and intensity of place attachment and critical thinking skills; and (3) in-depth interviews to better understand the qualitative nature and development of place attachment and critical thinking skills in a citizen science context. The survey and interview sample will be drawn from participants in the COASST citizen science program and will be stratified into four groups as a function of time engaged in the program, including new, novice, and long-term participants. An independent external advisory board and a committee of visitors comprised of experts in informal science, education, and sense of place will critique and help guide this work. Results are expected to reveal important factors that impact the learning and behavioral outcomes of informal STEM initiatives by probing questions about the essential experiences, exposures, and COASST program components that facilitate deeper critical thinking skills and place attachment. Synthesizing theoretical frameworks from the fields of geography, science education, and educational psychology while testing a unique methodological approach to best measure critical thinking skills and place attachment in an informal citizen science setting will enhance knowledge-building among research and practitioner communities.
In a globalized and increasingly technologically complex world, the ability of citizens to interrogate and interpret scientific evidence, views, and values is critical. That is, scientific literacy is essential for the maintenance of robust and healthy economic, social, and environmental systems in the twenty-first century. Informal science learning fills an important gap in national educational efforts to cultivate a scientifically literate populace as research suggests that formal science training is not always capable of fostering the type of higher order critical thinking skills that undergird such scientific competency. This project aims to strengthen infrastructure and build capacity among informal science practitioners by clarifying whether specific aspects and forms of Public Participation in Scientific Research, especially those relating to people-place connections, are implicated in the development and/or application of critical thinking skills in STEM settings. This effort may expand opportunities to strengthen informal science learning program outcomes, including the cultivation of numerous 21st century skills like information literacy and social skills like conflict management. Through a greater understanding of the individual components that shape informal learning experiences and outcomes, this project also has the potential to support the broadening of participation in STEM fields by providing the groundwork for further research on whether or not underrepresented or traditionally marginalized groups of people experience and/or relate differently to both the "places" most common in citizen science and the practice of informal science programming itself.
Background: Authentic research experiences and mentoring have positive impacts on fostering STEM engagement among youth from backgrounds underrepresented in STEM. Programs applying an experiential learning approach often incorporate one or both of these elements, however, there is little research on how these factors impact youth’s STEM engagement during the high school to college transition. Purpose: Using a longitudinal design, this study explored the impact of a hands-on field research experience and mentoring as unique factors impacting STEM-related outcomes among underrepresented youth
Environmental Protectors is a four-year project based at the University of California at Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science. The project is designed to explore the educational and developmental impact of an informal science education programming model that features Community and Citizen Science (CCS) activities for youth of color residing in urban communities. The project is grounded in hypothesis that CCS-focused experiences result in learning outcomes that better position youth of color to more effectively engage in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) related educational, occupational, and civic activities. Each year, in three economically challenged urban communities located throughout the country, youth of color between the ages of 14 and 18 will participate in month-long summer or semester-long afterschool programs. These programs will feature CCS-related activities that include collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data that addresses local, pressing environmental quality concerns, such as soil lead contamination and air particulate matter pollution. The project will use a mix of qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis to assess the impact of youth engagement in these CCS activities. Overall, through its implementation the project aims to generate information useful in nationwide efforts designed to identify effective strategies and approaches that contribute to increasing STEM understanding and interest among youth of color.
Project research is guided by the following questions: A) What are ways to increase STEM engagement among those who have typically been underrepresented in Community and Citizen Science (CCS) research projects in particular and STEM in general? B) When youth are engaged in CCS, what outcomes are observed related to their science agency and science activism? What other unanticipated outcomes are observed related to benefits of participation and learning? C) How does science activism develop in youth participating in CCS?; and D) How do differences in program implementation impact youth outcomes. In particular, the project explores the manner in which particular CCS activities (e.g., project design, data analysis and interpretation, data presentation) impact youth “Science Agency,” defined as a combination of constructs that include Science Identity (i.e., sense of themselves as science thinkers), Science Value (i.e., awareness of the potential benefits of applying scientific practices to addressing critical community health and environmental issues) and Science Competency Beliefs (i.e., belief of themselves as competent science practitioners) and “Science Activism,” defined as a combination of perceived behavioral control and personal salience. Through its execution the project will refine a theory of learning that makes explicit connections between these constructs. Information derived from the execution of the project will contribute to deeper understanding of the potential for using of CCS projects as a key component of science education environments in urban areas and in general.
This Research in Service to Practice project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.