The Sustainability Teams Empower and Amplify Membership in STEM (S-TEAMS), an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot project, will tackle the problem of persistent underrepresentation by low-income, minority, and women students in STEM disciplines and careers through transdisciplinary teamwork. As science is increasingly done in teams, collaborations bring diversity to research. Diverse interactions can support critical thinking, problem-solving, and is a priority among STEM disciplines. By exploring a set of individual contributors that can be effect change through collective impact, this project will explore alternative approaches to broadly enhance diversity in STEM, such as sense of community and perceived program benefit. The S-TEAMS project relies on the use of sustainability as the organizing frame for the deployment of learning communities (teams) that engage deeply with active learning. Studies on the issue of underrepresentation often cite a feeling of isolation and lack of academically supportive networks with other students like themselves as major reasons for a disinclination to pursue education and careers in STEM, even as the numbers of underrepresented groups are increasing in colleges and universities across the country. The growth of sustainability science provides an excellent opportunity to include students from underrepresented groups in supportive teams working together on problems that require expertise in multiple disciplines. Participating students will develop professional skills and strengthen STEM- and sustainability-specific skills through real-world experience in problem solving and team science. Ultimately this project is expected to help increase the number of qualified professionals in the field of sustainability and the number of minorities in the STEM professions.
While there is certainly a clear need to improve engagement and retention of underrepresented groups across the entire spectrum of STEM education - from K-12 through graduate education, and on through career choices - the explicit focus here is on the undergraduate piece of this critical issue. This approach to teamwork makes STEM socialization integral to the active learning process. Five-member transdisciplinary teams, from disciplines such as biology, chemistry, computer and information sciences, geography, geology, mathematics, physics, and sustainability science, will work together for ten weeks in summer 2018 on real-world projects with corporations, government organizations, and nongovernment organizations. Sustainability teams with low participation by underrepresented groups will be compared to those with high representation to gather insights regarding individual and collective engagement, productivity, and ongoing interest in STEM. Such insights will be used to scale up the effort through partnership with New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS).
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Amy TuiningaAshwani VasishthPankaj Lai
RMC Research designed evaluation activities to provide formative and summative feedback to the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation (HBRF) on their NSF Pathways project, Forest Science Dialogues (FSD). FSD consists of a plan to engage with scientists at the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study and with the surrounding community using the Hubbard Brook Roundtable dialogue process in order to facilitate mutual learning. The purpose of this engagement was to increase public knowledge, understanding, and awareness of ecosystem science in the Northern Forest in order to enrich local dialogue surrounding
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) will continue its collaboration in providing to early- and mid-career scientists and engineers experiential professional development and public service fellowships via the AAAS Science and Technology Fellowship Program. Consistent with the immersion model adopted by AAAS, Fellows at NSF will be selected annually through a competitive process and placed in organizations throughout the Foundation. Fellows will work with NSF staff on a broad range of activities in order to gain insight into how national science and technology policy goals are translated into and reflected by NSF's mission and strategic goals and how and by whom national science and technology policy is driven, shaped and prioritized. NSF fellowship assignments are designed to: educate and expose Fellows to NSF programmatic planning, development and oversight activities in all fields of fundamental research via hands-on engagement; utilize the Fellows' expertise on projects that apprise NSF officials in areas of mutual interest to the Fellow and the host organization; and provide developmental opportunities to inform future career decisions. The program includes an orientation on executive branch and congressional operations, as well as a year-long suite of knowledge- and skill-building seminars involving science, technology and public policy within the federal as well as NSF contexts.
In the long-term, the AAAS Fellowship program seeks to build leadership capacity for a strong national science and engineering enterprise. Upon completion of the Fellowship, Fellows will have gained: a broader understanding and increased insights about the development and execution of federal-level science, technology, engineering and mathematics policies and initiatives as well as how policy and science intersect; enhanced skills in communicating science to support policy development; and a greater capacity to serve more effectively in future leadership roles in diverse environments, including public and policy arenas, academia and the private sector. The ultimate outcome of the Fellowship program experience -- policy savvy science and engineer leaders who understand government and policymaking and are well-trained to develop and execute solutions to address the nation's challenges.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Olga FrancoisCynthia Robinson
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in collaboration with EcoArts Connections and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), is conducting an initial planning workshop and related activities which will be the first of three stepwise convenings over the next two or three years to gather experts from the fields of natural and social sciences, arts, energy/water conservation, and related disciplines. The initiative will work to establish an operational strategy for knowledge sharing across collaborating entities, networks, and associations. The major goal is to strengthen collaboration of professionals nationally to better conceive, conduct, and evaluate projects for the public that work at the intersection of science, arts, and sustainability (environmental, social and economic). Many communities around the country have been seeking to address increasingly pressing problems about their ability to sustain the vitality, health and resilience of their regions and the lives of their residents. Bringing inter-disciplinary knowledge and skills to bear on these issues is considered to be critical. Between 24 - 32 professionals will be involved. The workshop will be conducted simultaneously in Boulder, CO and at Princeton University, with communication between the two sites. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. Intended outcomes from this first workshop include: 1) identification and preliminary mapping of successful evidence-based best practices in science-arts-sustainability collaborations 2) a strategic vision for interdisciplinary collaboration across networks; and 3) an initial framework for the dissemination of findings that can reach across disciplines. Outputs include 1) preparation of a pre-workshop briefing booklet based in part on interviews of professionals in the various disciplines; 2) a post-workshop white paper; 3) a network of experts from the participating disciplinary fields; and 4) an agenda for the second (larger) convening. The trans-disciplinary strategy promises to more efficiently and effectively bring STEM disciplines to a wider public in collaboration with the arts through sustainability topics that are place-based, targeted to, and meaningful for specific audiences.
In this project, education researchers, environmental scientists, and educators will develop a computer tool to let STEM educators and curriculum developers build local environmental science models. The system will use data about land use to automatically construct map-based simulations of any area in the United States. Users will be able to choose from a range of environmental and economic issues to include in these models. The system will create simulations that ask students to change to patterns of land use -- for example, increasing land zoned for housing, or open land, or industrial development -- to try to meet environmental and social goals. As a result, students will be able to learn about the interaction of environmental and economic issues relevant to their own city, town, neighborhood, or region. These map-based simulations will be incorporated into an existing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education tool, Land Science, in which learners work in a fictional planning office to study how zoning affects economic and environmental issues in a community. Research has shown that Land Science is mode effective when learners are exploring issues in an area near their home, and the current study will investigate how and why local simulations improve environmental science learning. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which supports work to enhance learning in informal environments by funding innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings.
In this project, the research team will build, test, and deploy a toolkit that will allow informal STEM educators and developers of informal STEM programming to easily adapt an existing environmental science learning environment, which consists of a place-based virtual internship in urban planning and ecology, to their local contexts, learning objectives, and learner populations. Land Science is a virtual internship in which young people explore the environmental and socio-economic impacts of land-use decisions. To do so, they play the role of interns at an urban planning firm developing a new land-use proposal for the city of Lowell, Massachusetts: they read reports, virtually visit sites, determine stakeholder priorities, and use a geographic information system (GIS) model to evaluate the socio-economic and environmental impacts of land-use choices. No one plan can satisfy all stakeholders, so learners must compromise to create an effective plan and justify their decisions. Land Science has been shown to improve civic engagement, interest in eco-social issues, and understanding of scientific models, but it is most effective when the location of the virtual internship is in or near the learners' home town. To improve the accessibility and impact of this effective learning intervention, the interdisciplinary research team, which includes learning scientists, land-use experts, and informal STEM educators, will develop a Local Environmental Modeling toolkit, which will allow educators to change the location of the simulation and the stakeholder groups, zoning codes, and environmental and socio-economic indicators included in the land-use model. The system will ensure that the model produced is functional, realistic, and appropriately complex. The localized versions of Land Science produced by informal STEM educators will be used in a range of contexts and locations, allowing the research team to study the effects of an online, place-based learning intervention on environmental science learning, STEM interest and motivation, and civic engagement.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David ShafferKristen ScopinichHolly GibbsJeffrey Linderoth
Often called "self-plagiarism," text recycling occurs frequently in scientific writing. Over the past decade, increasing numbers of scientific journals have begun using plagiarism detection software to screen submitted manuscripts. As a result, large numbers of cases of text recycling are being identified, yet there is no consensus on what constitutes ethically acceptable practice. Text recycling is thus an increasingly important and controversial ethical issue in scientific communication. However, little actual research has been conducted on text recycling and it is rarely addressed in the ethical training of researchers or in scientific writing textbooks or websites. To promote the ethical and appropriate use of text recycling, this project will be conducted in two phases: In Phase 1, the researchers will investigate the ethical, practical, and legal aspects of text recycling as relevant for professional researchers, students, and publishers. In Phase 2, the investigators will produce educational materials and develop model language for text recycling guidelines and author-publisher contracts that can be adapted by educational institutions, research organizations, and publishers.
This project is a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary investigation of text recycling, the reuse of material from one?s previous work in a new manuscript. In Phase 1, the researchers will investigate questions such as these: What do expert researchers, students, and others involved in scientific communication believe to be appropriate practice, and why? Where is there a clear consensus among experts and where is there substantive disagreement? How often do professional scientists actually recycle material, and in what ways? Under what circumstances does text recycling violate publisher contracts or copyright laws? One facet of this research will involve interviewing and surveying experienced STEM faculty, students, journal editors, and others regarding the ethics of text recycling. A second facet will analyze a corpus of published scientific papers to investigate how researchers recycle text in practice and how this has changed over time. The third facet involves analyzing publisher contracts to better understand the rights of publishers and authors regarding text recycling and to assess their legal validity. In Phase 2, the investigators will use findings from Phase 1 to develop, test, and disseminate two kinds of materials: The first are web and print based instructional materials for STEM students (and others new to STEM research) explaining the ethical, legal, and practical issues involved with text recycling, as well as accompanying documents for faculty, administrators, and librarians. The second are model policies and guidelines for text recycling that address appropriate practice in both academic and professional settings. The investigators will obtain feedback on drafts of these materials from potential users and revise them accordingly, after which they will be disseminated.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Cary Moskovitz
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This ChangeMakers project builds on a 2016 National Academies report finding that scientific literacy can be understood at a community level as opposed to a traditional focus on the individual. This is important since scientific knowledge is often seen as abstract and distant from the daily concerns of average citizens. A community focus shifts the spotlight away from individual learning to collective learning facilitated by trusted cultural institutions serving as social assets. This work brings together scientific expertise and community organizations to advance operational science literacy--scientific ways of problem-solving--for community leaders and functional science literacy--information and skills people can use in their daily lives--among their service populations. This will be done by gathering and sharing knowledge and developing skills and abilities to contribute to the community's overall well-being.
The New England Aquarium (NeAq) and Aquarium of the Pacific (AoP) will apply a community engagement model involving active listening, documentation, alignment of concerns and goals, and co-development of shared solutions that serves the needs of all participants. As part of the Advancing Community Science Literacy (ACSL) project, multi-disciplinary teams from NeAq, AoP and their regional partners will participate in training on the model. They will apply that training to build and implement action plans to advance community-driven responses to local environmental issues. Teams will be assessed with respect to how they use tools from their shared training, along with peer support and coaching, to make progress in engaging diverse community stakeholders. Results of the evaluation will offer insights and recommendations for informal science learning centers to serve their communities more effectively as engagement facilitators and change agents to support science literacy development and action. By applying techniques developed for cultural institutions to communicate about climate science, and combining those with techniques developed for libraries and other organizations to help meet emergent community concerns, such as storm surges and coastal flooding, it is possible to redefine the role informal science learning centers can play as part of a community culture.
ACSL is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which supports projects that provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advances innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and develops understandings of deeper learning by participants.
Historically sharks have been seen either as a source of income through harvesting, or as a nuisance and danger. The economic value of sharks has traditionally been measured as the total value of sharks caught for liver oil, fins, or meat for consumption. Sharks have also been killed to near extinction in cases where they were seen as a threat to fisheries on other species. This is illustrated by the mass extermination of Basking Sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) in British Columbia. They were seen as a nuisance to fishermen as they got entangled in gill nets during the salmon fishing season
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Peter MierasChris H. ClarkMichael BearGina HodginBoone Hodgin
resourceevaluationProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This report presents findings from a formative evaluation of Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities-Informal Science Education (SENCER-ISE), a National Science Foundation and Noyce Foundation funded initiative to support partnerships between informal science and higher education institutions. This evaluation looked primarily at the collaborative infrastructure of SENCER-ISE, which included the web site, SENCER Summer Institute, and communications with project staff and/or the advisory board. This evaluation is the third evaluation that Randi Korn & Associates, Inc
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TEAM MEMBERS:
RK&A, Inc.
resourceevaluationProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The National Center for Science and Civic Engagement (NCSCE) contracted Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) to conduct a summative evaluation of its SENCER-ISE project partnerships. SENCER-ISE is an initiative that brings partners from higher education (HE) together with partners from informal science education (ISE) to create projects that engage audiences in science using the lens of civic engagement. SENCER funded 10 partnerships over three years—six through the National Science Foundation (DRL #1001795) and four through the Noyce Foundation. Previously, RK&A conducted a formative
The Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa (2013–2016) claimed over 10 000 lives in less than 18 months. Low levels of familiarity with the disease, ease of transmission, scale of infection, gruesomeness of symptoms, lack of cure and high fatality rate created a global panic. From the perspective of the social psychology of communication and content analysis, this study examines media coverage of the crisis in Africa with a view to unpacking the scientific and non-scientific information that may have framed public understanding of the disease. Findings show that accepting scientific
Since 2000, the UK government has funded surveys aimed at understanding the UK public's attitudes toward science, scientists, and science policy. Known as the Public Attitudes to Science series, these surveys and their predecessors have long been used in UK science communication policy, practice, and scholarship as a source of authoritative knowledge about science-related attitudes and behaviors. Given their importance and the significant public funding investment they represent, detailed academic scrutiny of the studies is needed. In this essay, we critically review the most recently