This project focuses on environmental health literacy and will explore the extent to which diverse rural and urban youth in an out-of-school STEM enrichment program exhibit gains in environmental health literacy while engaged in learning and teaching others about community resilience in the face of changing climates. Science centers and museums provide unique opportunities for youth to learn about resilience, because they bring community members together to examine the ways that current science influences local decisions. In this project, teams of participating youth will progress through four learning modules that explore the impacts of changing climates on local communities, the local vulnerabilities and risks associated with those changes, possible mitigation and adaptation strategies, and building capacities for communities to become climate resilient. After completion of these modules, participating youth will conduct a resilience-focused action project. Participants will be encouraged to engage peers, families, friends, and other community stakeholders in the design and implementation of their projects, and they will gain experience in accessing local climate and weather data, and in sharing their findings through relevant web portals. Participants will also use various sensors and web-based tools to collect their own data.
This study is guided by three research questions: 1) To what extent do youth develop knowledge, skills, and self- efficacy for developing community resilience (taken together, environmental health literacy in the context of resilience) through participation in museum-led, resilience-focused programming? 2) What program features and settings foster these science learning outcomes? And 3) How does environmental health literacy differ among rural and urban youth, and what do any differences imply for project replication? Over a two- year period, the project will proceed in six stages: a) Materials Development during the first year, b) Recruitment and selection of youth participants, c) Summer institute (six days), d) Workshops and field experiences during the school year following the summer institute, e) Locally relevant action projects, and f) End- of-program summit (one day). In pursuing answers to the research questions, a variety of data sources will be used, including transcripts from youth focus groups and educator interviews, brief researcher reflections of each focus group and interview, and a survey of resilience- related knowledge. Quantitative data sources will include a demographic survey and responses to a self-efficacy instrument for adolescents. The project will directly engage 32 youth, together with one parent or guardian per youth. The study will explore the experiences of rural and urban youth of high school age engaged in interactive, parallel programming to enable the project team to compare and contrast changes in environmental health literacy between rural and urban participants. It is anticipated that this research will advance knowledge of how engagement of diverse youth in informal learning environments influences understanding of resilience and development of environmental health literacy, and it will provide insights into the role of partnerships between research universities and informal science centers in focusing on community resilience.
Environmental health citizen science (CS) offers a strategy for historically disenfranchised community members to inform research questions, collect and analyze data, and draw conclusions about contaminants in their local environments to inform local action. In this study, direct feedback from demographically diverse participants and promotoras (community health workers) in a co-created environmental health CS project informs understanding of CS participant motivation, support, and barriers to participation. Study findings reflect a lack of association between participant self-efficacy and
The New England Aquarium will create Conservation STEM — an online curriculum that features engaging videos and hands-on activities aligned with state and national standards that are easily accessible for teachers to use in the classroom. The project responds to a need that the aquarium’s Teacher Advisory Council — composed of Pre-K through 12 teachers from the greater Boston area — identified, which was to help students develop critical and systems thinking skills. It also will provide a means for teachers to engage students with authentic experiences to address real-world problems and build an understanding of the need for a balanced use of the ocean.
The Explora Science Center and Children’s Museum will carry out the “Planting Seeds of STEM” project to address the under-representation of people of color in STEM courses and careers. Through informal science education programming that focuses on the STEM concepts inherent in the agricultural traditions of New Mexico, the project will engage students from communities of color in STEM. The project also aims to increase exposure to STEM role models, especially farmers from communities of color, and spark interest in STEM content and careers. The museum will partner with multiple local organizations and the New Mexico State University Master Gardener Program to implement the project activities.
The Hollister Herbarium at Tennessee Tech University will implement “Rooting Students in their Botanical History” — an educational module targeted for 11th and 12th grade biology students. The module will address “plant blindness,” a phenomenon defined as the failure to notice or appreciate plants. The herbarium will collaborate with three Tennessee high school biology teachers, a videographer, and a graduate research assistant to increase knowledge, awareness, and appreciation of plants over the three-year project. Students also will get to know herbarium specimens as an essential resource for information about the natural world.
The Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden will conduct the Million Orchid Project Authentic STEM Initiative to provide inclusive and accessible STEM learning opportunities for approximately 1,800 students annually from the most diverse and under-resourced middle and K-8 schools in Miami–Dade County. The initiative will use the Fairchild's STEMLab — a mobile plant propagation lab designed especially for schoolchildren — to bring the museum’s specialized scientific research to young learners in South Florida neighborhoods. Students and teachers will collect and analyze scientific data, devise research questions, and test hypotheses that will advance local conservation and contribute to the propagation of endangered orchids. Students will have the opportunity to explore STEM careers through interactions with Fairchild botanists.
The Key West Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden will strengthen and expand its “Living Laboratory,” a hands-on outdoor youth environmental education program. New curricula will target students in preschool through 6th grade to expand the reach of the program. Additional programming will serve students in middle school and high school, including facilitating guided research projects for students in the district STEM Fair. Partnerships with local organizations will help to expand inclusive programming for at-risk and economically disadvantaged students and make the program free. They will use student-created videos of their experiments and activities to create multimedia online tutorial resources for educators.
The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan's Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways will organize a four-day educational symposium to build a better understanding of Native American culture and history. The project will begin with a forum to foster dialogue on the 200th anniversary of the Treaty of Saginaw. The forum will discuss the treaty's impact on sovereignty and relationships between natives and non-natives and the loss of continuity of language, culture, and the practice of traditional art forms. The forum will include representatives from the 25 tribes whose children attended the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School. The representatives will share cultural stories and traditional methods through birch bark, black ash, elm and sweet grass basket making. The symposium will conclude on Michigan Indian Day with science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) activities for area students.
Building on program assessments and feedback, the Plains Art Museum will scale up its youth leadership-building program, Buzz Lab. The paid summer internship program engages teens in student-led, project-based learning in art and science. The program inspires the teens to lead community change while highlighting the art museum's role in addressing community needs. The program centers around the museum's pollinator garden, and the next phase of the project will engage interns with new and diverse project partners and guest speakers. For example, the interns will help find creative ways to streamline Buzz Lab projects for mass appeal and engage citizens around the pollinator crisis. The museum will also create a support network for interns entering post-secondary education programs by leveraging relationships with regional universities. Project assessment will be responsive to intern feedback so the teens become co-collaborators on the program's future.
The Chicago Botanic Garden will launch the Healing Environments Ambassadors Learning Through Horticulture (HEALTH) project to help low-income Latina/o (Latinx) individuals and communities understand and create connections between nature and human health and well-being, as well as foster an interest in STEAM education and career paths. In partnership with Instituto del Progreso Latino, the garden will develop and implement annually a year-round curriculum for 16-20 teens and young adults from two charter schools. Through multi-sensory learning, project-based discovery, and incentives, teens will proactively and creatively begin to address challenges related to plants, nature, and sustainability in their local environments. HEALTH will engage family and community members in environmental education and stewardship activities through a partnership with Forest Preserves of Cook County and visits to the garden. Students will have opportunities to create and present films on community environmental topics and their personal experiences with the project, bringing awareness of the program model and its outcomes to a broad audience.
The Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden will leverage its partnership with NASA Kennedy Space Center to design, equip, and operate an inclusive and interactive scientific research workspace. The new makerspace will provide visitors of all ages an opportunity to contribute to identifying solutions to food production issues. Preparation of the Growing Beyond Earth Innovation Studio will involve equipping the space with state-of-the-art tools and materials for designing and monitoring growing experiments, installing plant growing equipment, and furnishing the space to maximize experimentation, collaboration, and learning. The garden will invite K-12 students, families and casual visitors to collaborate on plant science experiments, allowing them to address questions relevant to current NASA research on food production aboard spacecraft, and within habitats on the surface of Mars.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium will use an iterative program development process to strengthen and expand its teen programming to inspire youth to conserve the ocean and its vast resources. The Teen Pathways: Inspiring Future Ocean Stewards project will increase the number of teens the aquarium engages in ocean science, environmental research, service learning, and conservation action. The project will create opportunities for middle and high school teens to strengthen their knowledge, skills, and commitment to conservation that will continue into and beyond college. The project team will complete an ongoing development process by implementing new project-based science and conservation programs for 7th-9th grade students that provide a pathway to the aquarium's high school programs. The team will also revamp its existing leadership program for high school students and refine its other teen offerings. The programs will align with Next Generation Science Standards and the Ocean Literacy Framework.