Communities with the highest risk of climate change impacts may also be least able to respond and adapt to climate change, which highlights a specific need for inclusive Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) strategies. This Pilot and Feasibility project builds on the success of US Cooperative Extension Service programs that empower volunteers to conduct outreach in their own communities. It focuses on climate change, and seeks to co-design an informal STEM climate science curriculum, called Climate Stewards, in collaboration with community members from groups often underrepresented in STEM, including indigenous and Latinx communities, as well as rural women. The project is designed to strengthen community awareness as well as prioritize community voices in climate change conversations. The knowledge and skills obtained by Climate Stewards and their communities will allow for more involvement in decisions related to climate adaptation and mitigation in their communities and beyond. After establishing a proof of concept, the project seeks to expand this work to more rural and urban communities, other communities of color, and additional socioeconomically disadvantaged communities.
Grounded in the theory of diffusion of innovation as a means for volunteers to communicate information to members of a social system, this project seeks co-create a retooled Climate Stewards curriculum using inclusive and adaptive strategies. Community collaboration and involvement through new and existing partnerships, focus groups, and meetings will determine what each community needs. During the program design phase, community members can share their concerns regarding climate change as well as the unique characteristics and cultural perspectives that should be addressed. The collaboration between extension and education leverage resources that are important for developing a robust implementation and evaluation process. This project is expected to have a significant influence on local and national programs that are looking to incorporate climate change topics into their programming and/or broaden their reach to underrepresented communities. The hypotheses tested in this project describe how inclusion-based approaches may influence competencies in STEM topics and their impact on communities, specifically willingness to take action. Hypothesis 1: STEM competencies in climate issues increase with interactive and peer learning approaches. Hypothesis 2: Community participation in the co-creation of knowledge about climate change, by integrating their values and objectives into the climate change education program, increases people's motivation to become engaged in climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.
This Pilot and Feasibility project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Patricia TownsendRoslynn McCannMelissa KreyeArthur Nash
This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning 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. Specifically, this project connects Native Hawaiian youth ages 12-17 and their family members to STEM by channeling their cultural relationship with ʻāina, the sustaining elements of the natural world including the land, sea, and air. This project seeks to: broaden participation of Native Hawaiian youth who have been historically underrepresented in STEM; actively uphold Native Hawaiian ways of knowing and traditional knowledge; articulate the science rooted in cultural wisdom; and bring STEM into the lives of participants as they connect to the ʻāina. In partnership with six ʻāina-based community organizations across Hawaiʻi, this project will develop, implement, and study ʻāina-centered environmental education activities that explore solutions to local environmental problems. For example, in one module youth and their families will explore of a section of a nearby stream; identify and discuss the native, non-native, and invasive species; remove invasive species from a small section of the stream and make observations leading to discussions of unintended consequences and systemic impacts; ultimately, learners will meet at additional local waterways to engage in similar explorations and discussions, transferring their knowledge to understanding the impacts of construction on local streams and coral reefs. To this effort, the community-based organizations bring their expertise in preserving Hawaiian culture and sustainable island lifestyle, including rural and urban systems such as farming and irrigation traditions and the restoration of cultural sites. University of Hawai’i faculty and staff bring expertise in Environmental Science, Biology, Hawaiian Studies and Problem-Based Learning Curriculum Development. This project further supports organizational learning and sharing among the six community-based organizations. Grounded in Hawaiian ʻAʻo, where learning and teaching are the same interaction, community-based organizations will create a Community of Practice that will co-learn Problem-Based Learning pedagogy; co-learn and engage in research and evaluation methods; and share experiential and traditional knowledge to co-develop the ʻāina-based environmental education activities.
This project is uniquely situated to study the impact of community-led culturally relevant pedagogy on Hawaiian learners’ interests and connections to environmental science, and to understand ʻāina-based learning through empirical research. Research methods draw on Community-Based Participatory Research and Indigenous Research Methods to develop a collaborative research design process incorporated into the project’s key components. Community members, researchers, and evaluators will work together to examine the following research questions: 1) How does environmental Problem-Based Learning situate within ʻāina-based informal contexts?; 2) What are the environmental education learning impacts of ʻāina-based activities on youth and family participants?; and 3) How does the ʻāina-centered Problem-Based Learning approach to informal STEM education support STEM knowledge, interest and awareness? The evaluation will employ a mixed-methods participatory design to explore program efficacy, fidelity, and implementation more broadly across community-based sites, as well as program sustainability within each community-based site. Anticipated project outcomes are a 15-week organizational learning and sharing program with six ʻāina-based community organizations and 72 staff; the design and implementation of 18 activities to reach 360 youth and at least one of their family members; and the launch of an ʻāina-based STEM Community of Practice. The project’s research and development process for ʻāina-centered environmental education activities will be shared broadly and provide a useful example for other organizations locally and nationally working in informal settings with Native or Indigenous populations.
This collaborative project will facilitate rural community education on climate impacts. The Carnegie Natural History Museum and the University of Pittsburgh will work together to form a network of interested community members in Mercer County and Powdermill Nature Reserve in western Pennsylvania to explore the impacts of climate and how its effect could be mitigated or accommodated. The project is has three related ideas: (1) museums hold valuable resources for understanding environmental change, (2) museums are not serving rural audiences well, and (3) complex socio-scientific environmental topics are deeply connected to social decision making in rural communities. This project will bring an inclusive approach to the discussion of socio-scientific issues in rural Western PA, through building relationships between local public audiences, STEM professionals, and informal learning specialists, creating opportunities for co-development of resources and building organizational capacity. The overarching goals of the project are to explore how museums can better serve rural stakeholders and increase the capacity for science-based conversations about human-caused climate impacts.
This project involves a cross-disciplinary team with Carnegie Museum of Natural History providing expertise in interpretation and ecological science, the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out of School Environments (UPCLOSE) providing expertise in learning research, and rural Hubs centered at Powdermill Nature Reserve (PNR) and the Mercer County Conservation District providing expertise in environmental education, conservation, and engagement with rural communities. The Hubs will coordinate professional development workshops, collaborative design sessions, and community gatherings to bring local stakeholders together to examine and adapt existing resources, including environmental science data and climate education tools, to local issues. These activities will be structured through a Research Practice Partnership. Each will have its own unique mix of geography, demographics, resources, and challenges.
The Research questions are: 1. How can the project effectively support the creation of socially safe spaces for rural Western PA communities to have science-based discussions around climate impacts? 2. How does work with rural partners influence the development of the museum's Center for Climate Studies and its mission to offer programs designed to support public engagement?
3. In what ways have museums been able to support learning about climate topics in rural communities? Data will be gathered from interviews and case studies. There will be two longitudinal studies of local network change and museum change. A survey will also be done to assess the impact of the project on the public. Protocols will be developed in collaboration with the Hubs.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lauren GiarrataniNicole HellerKevin Crowley
Northern ecosystems are rapidly changing; so too are the learning and information needs of Arctic and sub-Arctic communities who depend on these ecosystems for wild harvested foods. Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) presents a possible method to increase flow of scientific and local knowledge, enhance STEM-based problem solving skills, and co-create new knowledge about phenology at local and regional or larger scales. However, there remain some key challenges that the field of PPSR research must address to achieve this goal. The proposed research will make substantial contributions to two of these issues by: 1) advancing theory on the interactions between PPSR and resilience in social-ecological systems, and 2) advancing our understanding of strategies to increase the engagement of youth and adults historically underrepresented in STEM, including Alaska Native and indigenous youth and their families who play an essential role in the sustainability of environmental monitoring in the high latitudes and rural locations throughout the globe. In particular, our project results will assist practitioners in choosing and investing in design elements of PPSR projects to better navigate the trade-offs between large-scale scientific outcomes and local cultural relevance. The data collected across the citizen science network will also advance scientific knowledge on the effects of phenological changes on berry availability to people and other animals.
The Arctic Harvest research goals are to 1) critically examine the relationship between PPSR learning outcomes in informal science environments and attributes of social-ecological resilience and 2) assess the impact of two program design elements (level of support and interaction with mentors and scientists, and an innovative story-based delivery method) on the engagement of underserved audiences. In partnership with afterschool clubs in urban and rural Alaska, we will assess the impact of participation in Winterberry, a new PPSR project that investigates the effect of changes in the timing of the seasons on subsistence berry resources. We propose to investigate individual and community-level learning outcomes expected to influence the ability for communities to adapt to climate change impacts, including attributes of engagement, higher-order thinking skills, and their influence on the level of civic action and interest in berry resource stewardship by the youth groups. Using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, we compare these outcomes with the same citizen science program delivered through two alternate methods: 1) a highly supported delivery method with increased in-person interaction with program mentors and scientists, and 2) an innovative method that weaves in storytelling based on elder experiences, youth observations, and citizen science data at all stages of the program learning cycle. 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. The project also has support from the Office of Polar Programs.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Katie SpellmanElena SparrowChrista MulderDeb Jones
Cities and communities in the U.S. and around the world are entering a new era of transformational change, in which their inhabitants and the surrounding built and natural environments are increasingly connected by smart technologies, leading to new opportunities for innovation, improved services, and enhanced quality of life. The Smart and Connected Communities (SCC) program supports strongly interdisciplinary, integrative research and research capacity-building activities that will improve understanding of smart and connected communities and lead to discoveries that enable sustainable change to enhance community functioning. This project is a Research Coordination Network (RCN) that focuses on achieving SCC for medium/small size, remote, and rural communities through a polycentric (multiple centers) integrated policy, design, and technology approach. The communities served by the RCN have higher barriers to information, resources, and services than larger urban communities. To reduce this gap, the PIs propose to develop need-based R&D pipelines to select solutions with the highest potential impacts to the communities. Instead of trying to connect under-connected communities to nearby large cities, this proposal aims to develop economic opportunities within the communities themselves. This topic aligns well with the vision of the SCC program, and the proposed RCN consists of a diverse group of researchers, communities, industry, government, and non-profit partners.
This award will support the development of an RCN within the Commonwealth of Virginia which will coordinate multiple partners in developing innovations utilizing smart and connected technologies. The goal of the research coordination network is to enable researchers and citizens to collaborate on research supporting enhanced quality of life for medium, small, and rural communities which frequently lack the communication and other infrastructure available in cities. The research coordination network will be led by the University of Virginia. There are 14 partner organizations including six research center partners in transportation, environment, architecture and urban planning, and engineering and technology; two State and Industry partners (Virginia Municipal League and Virginia Center for Innovative Technology); four community partners representing health services (UVA Center for Telemedicine), small and remote communities (Weldon Cooper Center), neighborhood communities (Charlottesville Neighborhood Development), and urban communities (Thriving Cities); and two national partners which support high speed networking (US-Ignite) and city-university hubs (MetroLab). Examples of research coordination include telemedicine services, transportation services, and user-centric and community-centric utilization and deployment of sensor technologies.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ila BermanT. Donna ChenKaren RheubanQian Cai