Researchers and practitioners have identified numerous outcomes of place-based environmental action (PBEA) programs at both individual and community levels (e.g., promoting positive youth development, fostering science identity, building social capital, and contributing to environmental quality improvement). In many cases, the primary audience of PBEA programs are youth, with less attention given to lifelong learners or intergenerational (e.g., youth and adult) partnerships. However, there is a need for PBEA programs for lifelong learners as local conservation decisions in the United States
This study explores the field of scientific policy advice in environmental and energy policies in France to gain insights into the role of think tanks. The field evolved along with the growth of think tanks. The think tanks refer to several orders of worth and combine them in their communication in order to qualify their expertise. The results of the study reveal that the think tanks have become more independent actors and that the field of scientific policy advice has gained autonomy. Both aspects indicate that the relationship between politics and expertise has gradually changed in France.
This poster was presented at the 2019 AISL PI Meeting, and describes the the ongoing research questions and goals of the Ute STEM Project, which explores the integration of the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of the Ute Indians of Colorado and Utah and Western science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
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
Community education with regard to science comes in many forms and is usually designed to address issues within that community. In this proposal, land use is the focus. This is a general topic and applicable in nearly all locations within communities and in the State. In this case, the topic is used to educate adults and high school students providing each with unique identities. Using satellite-enabled tools, the topology of an area can be mapped in detail and assessed for use thus enabling science education for both adults and high school students. The studies will involve intergenerational learning which is an area needing additional study. Also, the proposers are going to broaden the scope so that it impacts several different areas in the State of Connecticut. This is important because in doing so it will include the diversity of cultures within the State and the education results will reflect this diversity. As a part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds research and innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This proposed effort aims to promote lifelong STEM learning through a focus on conservation, geospatial technology and community engagement. The goals are to: (1) develop particular STEM knowledge and skills, and foster STEM identity authoring/learning in two disparate groups of lifelong learners, and (2) gain a deeper understanding of the ways that this learning occurs through research and evaluation. The project will develop an educational program that focuses on conservation science and recent advances in web-enabled geospatial technologies (geographic information systems, remote sensing, and global positioning systems) that, for the first time, make these technologies accessible and attainable for the public. The focus will be on urban and rural areas with underrepresented populations of STEM learners. Two groups of lifelong learners will be targeted: adult volunteers involved with community land conservation issues, and high school-aged adolescents enabling the project to investigate the processes and impacts of intergenerational learning.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
John VolinDavid MossDavid CampbellChester ArnoldCary Chadwick
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This proposed effort embraces broad participation by the three Ute tribes, History Colorado, and scientists in the field of archaeology to investigate and integrate traditional ecological knowledge and contemporary Western science. The project will preserve knowledge from the Ute peoples of Colorado and Utah, including traditional technology, ethnobotany, engineering and math. Results from this project will inform educational efforts in similar communities.
This project will build on the long-standing collaborations between History Colorado (HC), the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and Ute Indian Tribe, Uintah & Ouray Reservation, and the Dominguez Archaeological Research Group DARG). HC will implement and evaluate a regional informal learning collaboration focused on Ute traditional and contemporary STEM knowledge serving over 128,000 learners through tribal programs, local history museums and educational networks. This project will advance the understanding of integrated knowledge and the role of Ute people as STEM learners and practitioners. This Informal Science Learning project will increase lifelong STEM learning in rural communities and create a replicable model for collaboration among tribes, history museums, and scientists.
Catechism, a literary genre of a religious origin, was once employed in the teaching of ‘lay’ subjects, especially of a technical nature. This is a review of this past editorial tradition which illustrates the potentialities and the limitations of agrarian catechisms, with a special focus on their spreading across Southern Italy in the late Enlightenment. This paper reflects on whether a book was the best instrument to hand down procedures and notions to people who supposedly were illiterate or unschooled.
The people of Val di Susa (Italy) blocked the construction of the new high-speed railway line that should connect Turin with Lyons (France). This project is regarded as a strategic achievement for the economic development of the European Union, but local communities have a different concept of development and are asserting their rights through ad hoc experts’ reports and the production “from the bottom” of new specialised knowledge. We shall describe these events as a case study to put ecological democracy to the test of facts, also through a comparison with the experimental actions taken in
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Yurij CastelfranchiGiancarlo Sturloni
The incident of Scanzano Jonico, in Italy's Basilicata region, has been something more than a lesson for those who handle the relationships between science and society. During November and December 2003 in this small southern Italian town a theory has been proven false. According to this theory, in the modern world, the best way to solve the problems put before society by science and technology would be for the experts to discuss them behind closed doors.
This will be a unique video game based on the writings the American author Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond. Designed and directed by game designer Tracy Fullerton, Walden, a game, will simulate the experiment in living made by Thoreau at Walden Pond in 1845-47, allowing players to walk in his virtual footsteps, attend to the tasks of living a self-reliant existence, discover in the beauty of a virtual landscape the ideas and writings of this unique philosopher, and cultivate through the game play their own thoughts and responses to the concepts discovered there. The humanities content of the game will focus on an interactive translation of Thoreau’s writings and will also include references to the historical context of those writings. The game takes place in the environment of 1845 New England, when new technologies such as the railroad, the telegraph were first being seen and were part of the changes to pace of life that Thoreau so articulately resisted in critiques of society.
QUEST Beyond Local is a consortium of six public media providers across the country coming together in a unique collaborative structure to foster widespread STEM literacy for general audiences; support formal and informal education outcomes in the sciences; and revive ailing science and environment journalism in the face of its rapid decline. QUEST Beyond Local is built on the success of the local, cross-editorial QUEST model, in which media making professionals from multiple disciplines--radio, television, web, and especially education--collaborate to distribute high-quality content to general and underserved audiences. Two years ago, KQED (serving Northern California) introduced a capacity-building effort with five other public media stations serving markets across the nation: Seattle (KCTS), Wisconsin (WPT/WPR), Nebraska (NET), Cleveland (ideastream), and North Carolina (UNC-TV). On the heels of this pilot process, QUEST Beyond Local will expand production in all markets and focus its multimedia efforts around the theme "Science of Sustainability" so as to achieve maximum effect on critical STEM outcomes in formal and informal education settings, and to foster science/environment literacy among a wide general audience. QUEST Beyond Local is defined by an organizationally and technologically innovative model of content creation: a newsroom structured according to a hub and spoke model; with common branding, technical, and style guidelines; and with a central coordinating and editorial office liaising between local production teams. Under the guidance of this central office, the collaborative seeks to create content with both local authority and national relevance. Building on existing media impact research, and previous research and evaluation of QUEST, research firm Rockman et al will apply evaluation theory to determine: (1) the structures and strategies to a successful STEM collaborative that contribute to a greater understanding of and engagement in science and environment topics; and (2) determine the interests, priorities, and media consumption habits of local and national STEM audiences. Primary project deliverables include three diverse multimedia packages for general and professional audiences, focusing on three main themes and anchored in STEM disciplines. In total, the three packages will include: 18 television segments; 6 half-hour television programs; 20 radio reports; 18 "web extras" (slide shows, maps, etc.); 12 web-based videos; 144 blog posts; 18 education "explainers"; 5 educator trainings; and a comprehensive distribution and social media campaign. All efforts will be supported by at least 18 science community partners, including zoos, museums, aquariums, research centers, and others. Through these efforts, the collaborative seeks to repair the systemic damage done by years of neglect to science/environment journalism--particularly the marked decline in this type of coverage over the last decade. This decline is perhaps related to the observed disconnect between the public and scientific knowledge, despite a demonstrated public appetite for science content and educators' reported desire for more resources and professional development opportunities focused on STEM topics. At a time when an evolving workforce and economy increasingly demand STEM skills and environmental literacy, QUEST Beyond Local will contribute resources to address these challenges.
Through a critical ethnography, Birmingham and Calabrese Barton examined why and how a group of six middle school girls took civic action, defined as “educated action in science,” after studying green energy in an afterschool science program. The paper follows the students’ process in planning and implementing a carnival to engage their community in energy conservation and efficiency issues.