This summary brief captures highlights from the second year of the NSF-funded WaterMarks project. The technical evaluation report for this same project period can be found on the main project page. The purpose of this document is to communicate key updates (as observed by the evaluation team) in a less technical way with the many different audiences who have an interest in keeping up with WaterMarks.
This is the evaluation report for the second year of the NSF-funded WaterMarks project. It reflects a current summary of available evidence about the intended outcomes of program activities to date, as well as commentary on how the project is using (or could use) this information moving forward.
This summary brief captures highlights from the evaluation report for the first year of the NSF-funded WaterMarks project (also available on this page). The purpose of this document is to communicate key updates from evaluation in a less technical way with the many different audiences who have an interest in keeping up with WaterMarks.
This is the evaluation report for the first year of the NSF-funded WaterMarks project. It reflects an initial summary of available evidence about the intended outcomes of program activities to date, as well as commentary on how the project is using (or could use) this information moving forward. This report contains descriptions of embedded measures (i.e. anonymized drawings and reflections captured on a thematic postcard) included in community walks and analyses of secondary data (i.e., interviews conducted by other members of hte project team), as well as reflections emerging from the
Creating science education that can contribute to cultivating just, culturally thriving, and sustainable worlds is an important issue of our time. Indigenous peoples have persistently been under-represented in science reproducing inequalities in a myriad of ways from educational attainment, participation in and contributing to innovations in foundational knowledge, to effective policy making that upholds and respects Indigenous sovereignty. The development of models of science education that attend to intersections of knowledge and development, socio-scientific decision-making and civic leadership, and the complexities and contradictions of these realities, is imperative. This five-year Innovations in Development project broadens participation and strengthens infrastructure and capacity for Indigenous learners to meet, adapt to, and lead change in relation to the socio-ecological challenges of the 21st century. The project engages multi-sited community-based design studies to develop and research the impacts of Indigenous informal field-based science education with three Indigenous leadership communities from the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes. This project will have broader impacts through model development, building infrastructure to transform the capacity of informal field-based science education, and will produce cutting edge foundational knowledge about pressing 21st century issues with a particular focus on Indigenous communities. The project increases Indigenous participation in research through 1) engagement of Indigenous community members as research assistants, 2) training of Indigenous graduate fellows, and post-doctoral fellows, and 3) supporting the careers of more junior Indigenous scholars.
This research seeks to identify key design features of an Indigenous field (land/water) based model of science education and to understand how learners’ and educators’ reasoning, deliberation, decision-making, and leadership about complex socio-ecological systems and community change evolve in such learning environments. The project also examines key aspects of co-design and partnership with Tribal communities and how these methods of co-production of new science enable new capacities for systems transformation. This multi-layered project is organized through 3 panels of studies including: Panel 1) community-based design experiments to develop and refine a model of Indigenous informal science education; Panel 2) co-design and implementation of professional learning programs for Indigenous informal science education; and Panel 3) foundational studies in cognition and learning with respect to socio-ecological systems thinking and the impact on learning and instructional practices. Of particular importance in this research is the rigorous development and articulation of effective pedagogical practices and orientations. More broadly, findings will have clear implications for theories of cognitive development, deliberation and environmental decision making and especially those pertaining to how knowledge is shaped by culture and experience.
This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Filiberto Barajas-LopezAnna LeesMegan BangAnna LeesFiliberto Barajas-Lopez
In partnership with the Digital NEST, students engage in near to peer learning with a technical tool for the benefit of a nonprofit that tackles issues the youth are passionate about. Youth build first from an 'internal’ Impactathon, to planning and developing an additional Impactathon for a local partner and then traveling to another partner elsewhere in the state. Participants range from 14 to 24 from UC Santa Cruz students to middle schoolers from Watsonville and Salinas.
This poster was presented at the 2019 AISL Principal Investigators Meeting.
This pilot study will examine the effectiveness of an innovative applied social change, community and technology based program on marginalized youths' access, interest, efficacy and motivation to learn and engage in digital technology applications. Using stratified near-peer and peer-to-peer mentoring approaches, the pilot builds on extant literature that indicates that peer-supported hands-on mentoring and experiences can alleviate some barriers to youth engagement in digital technologies, particularly among underrepresented groups. In this project, undergraduate students will mentor and work collaboratively with high school youth primarily of Hispanic descent and community-based organizations to develop creative technology-based solutions to address social issues and challenges within their local communities, culminating in events called Impactathons. These community-hosted local and state-wide events set this pilot project apart from similar work in the field. The Impactathons not only provide a space for intellectual discourse and problem-solving among the undergraduate-youth-community partners but the Impactathons will also codify expertise from scientists, social scientists, technologists, community leaders, and other stakeholders to develop technology-based solutions with real world application. If successful, a distal outcome will be increased youth interest in digital technologies and related fields. In the short term, favorable findings will provide preliminary evidence of success and lay the foundation for a more extensive study in the future.
This pilot project is a collaboration between the Everett Program, a student-led program for Technology and Social Change at the University of California Santa Cruz - a Hispanic Serving Institution - and the Digital NEST, a non-profit, high-tech youth career development and collaboration space for young people ages 14-24. Through this partnership and other recruitment efforts, an estimated 70-90 individuals will participate in the Impactathon pilot program over two years. Nearly two-thirds of the participants are expected to be undergraduate students. They will receive extensive training in near-peer and peer-to-peer mentoring and serve as mentors for and co-innovation developers with the high school youth participants. The undergraduates and youth will partner with local community organizations to identify a local social challenge that can be addressed through a technology-based solution. The emergent challenges will vary and could span the spectrum of STEM and applied social science topics of interest. Working in informal contexts (i.e., afterschool. weekend), the undergraduate-youth-community partner teams will work collaboratively to develop practical technology-based solutions to real world challenges. The teams will convene three times per year, locally and statewide, at student and community led Impactathons to share their work and glean insights from other teams to refine their innovations. In parallel, the research team will examine the effectiveness of the Impactathon model in increasing the undergraduate and youths' interest, motivation, excitement, engagement and learning of digital technologies. In addition to the research, the formative and summative evaluations should provide valuable insights on the effectiveness of the model and its potential for expansion and replication.
The project is co-funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) Program and STEM +C. The AISL program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. STEM + C focuses on research and development of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to the integration of computing within STEM teaching and learning for preK-12 students in both formal and informal settings.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Worldwide, four million people participate in geocaching--a game of discovering hidden treasures with GPS-enabled devices (including smart phones). Geocachers span all ages and tend to be interested in technology and the outdoors. To share information about the Montana Climate Assessment (MCA), an NSF-funded scientific report, Montana State University created a custom trackable geocaching coin featuring the MCA Website and logo. We then recruited volunteers to hide one coin in each of Montana’s 56 counties. Volunteer geocachers enthusiastically adopted all 56 counties, wrote blogs and social media posts about the coins, and engaged local Scout troops and schools. Other geocachers then found and circulated the coins while learning about Montana’s climate. One coin has traveled nearly 4,000 miles; several have visited other states and Canada. 95% of the volunteers said the project made them feel more connected to university research, and they told an average of seven other people about the project. Nearly all of the participants were unfamiliar with the Montana Climate Assessment prior to participating. The geocaching educational outreach project included several partnerships, including with Geocaching Headquarters in Seattle (a.k.a. “Groundspeak”); Cache Advance, Inc., an environmentally friendly outdoor gear company; and Gallatin Valley Geocachers. An advisory board of geocachers helped launch the project.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Suzi TaylorRay CallawayM.J. NehasilCathy Whitlock
Educational approaches that provide meaningful, relevant opportunities for place-based learning have been shown to be effective models for engaging indigenous students in science. The Laulima A ‘Ike Pono (LAIP) collaboration was developed to create a place-based inclusive learning environment for engaging local community members, especially Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, in scientific research at a historically significant ancient Hawaiian fishpond. The LAIP internship focused on problem-solving activities that were culturally relevant to provide a holistic STEM research experience
Learn how to create opportunities for young people from low-income, ethnically diverse communities to learn about growing food, doing science, and how science can help them contribute to their community in positive ways. The authors developed a program that integrates hydroponics (a method of growing plants indoors without soil) into both in-school and out-of-school educational settings.
The increasing need for communicating science to the public suggests that future scientists and science educators should be educated in science outreach and trained to communicate with lay audiences. We present a recently developed novel graduate course, which trains students in outreach efforts aimed to increase the public's understanding of science and of the role of science in our daily lives. In this course, the students, with the help of expert faculty mentors, prepare lay-language presentations about science-related topics of their choice and take the presentations to adult venues in the
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Hannah AlexanderAnna WaldronSandra Abell