The Wild Center has been running climate programs for over a decade and has embraced a culture of evaluation in its work to reflect on and improve the programs over time. This evaluation built on findings from prior evaluations to further explore the programs’ impact on rural youth and teachers, but also sought to understand broader contributions to the ecosystem of organizations doing climate resilience work across New York state and around the country.
We used a youth focused wild berry monitoring program that spanned urban and rural Alaska to test this method across diverse age levels and learning settings.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Katie SpellmanDouglas CostChristine Villano
In this study, we examined how two different CCS models, a contributory design and a co-created design, influenced science self-efficacy and science interest among youth CCS participants.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sarah ClementKatie SpellmanLaura OxtobyKelly KealyKarin BodonyElena SparrowChristopher Arp
The Arctic Harvest-Public Participation in Scientific Research (which encompasses the Winterberry Citizen Science program), a four-year citizen science project looking at the effect of climate change on berry availability to consumers has made measurable progress advancing our understanding of key performance indicators of highly effective citizen science programs.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Angela LarsonKelly KealyMakaela Dickerson
This project builds off prior work conducted for the Science Center Public Forums project (NA15SEC008005) where eight forums were held at different sites across the US related to four climate hazards (drought, sea level rise, extreme heat, and extreme precipitation).
This guidebook will help you plan your action project. The initial brainstorm pages will help you consider where to start, and the Action Project Framework will navigate you through steps to get to your destination: the completion of your project!
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.
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
The MyDome project will bring 3D virtual worlds for group interaction into planetaria and portable domes. Advances in computing have evolved the planetarium dome experience from a star field and pointer presentation to a high-resolution movie covering the entire hemispherical screen. The project will further transform the dome theater experience into an interactive immersive adventure. MyDome will develop scenarios in which the audience can explore along three lines of inquiry: (1) the past with archeological reconstructions, (2) the present in a living forest, and (3) the future in a space station or colony on Mars. These scenarios will push the limits of technology in rendering believable environments of differing complexity and will also provide research data on human-centered computing as it applies to inquiry and group interactions while exploring virtual environments. The project proposes to engage a large portion of the population, with a special emphasis on the underserved and under-engaged but very tech-savvy teenage learner. Research questions addressed are: 1. What are the most engaging and educational environments to explore in full-dome? 2. What on-screen tools and presentation techniques will facilitate interactions? 3. What are the limitations for this experience using a single computer, single projector mirror projection system as found in the portable Discovery Dome? 4. Which audiences are best served by exploration of virtual hemispherical environments? 5. How large can the audience be and still be effective for the individual learner? What techniques can be used to provide more people with a level of control of the experience and does the group interaction enhance or diminish the engagement of different individuals? 6. What kind of engagement can be developed in producing scientific and climate awareness? Does experiencing past civilizations lead to more interest in other cultures? Does supported learning in the virtual forest lead to greater connection to and understanding of the real forest? Does the virtual model space experience excite students and citizens about space exploration or increase the understanding of the Earth's biosphere? The broader impacts of the project are (1) benefits to society from increasing public awareness and understanding of human relationships with the environment in past civilizations, today?s forests and climate change, and potential future civilizations in space and on Mars; (2) increasing the appeal of informal science museums to the tech-savvy teenage audience, and (3) significant gains in awareness of young people in school courses and careers in science and engineering. The partners represent a geographically diverse audience and underserved populations that include rural (University of New Hampshire), minority students (Houston Museum of Natural Science) and economically-distressed neighborhoods (Carnegie Museum of Natural History). Robust evaluation will inform each program as it is produced and refined, and will provide the needed data on the potential for learning in the interactive dome environment and on the optimal audience size for each different type of inquiry.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Annette SchlossKerry HandronCarolyn Sumners
The project DIG: Scientists in Alaska's Scenery will perform proof-of-concept on integrating a tourist's visit with place-based stories of meaningful science research in the Arctic. DIG (Digitally Integrated Guide) will widen the general public's interaction with the cultural and natural environment by allowing them to access Web sites and load their handheld mobile devices with engaging descriptions of research. Access can occur before, during, or after their visit - even if the visit takes them far from computers, electricity and the Internet. The creation of user-friendly access to technology and to scientists' stories will provide a new information tool for the public. For these tourists, or others interested in research in Alaska, opportunities to learn directly from the scientists themselves are almost non-existent. Moreover, tourists have no capability to link such research with places they visit. DIG's place-based outreach will be delivered using standard media (broadcast TV, publications) and social media (Web, facebook, twitter, etc.) and mobile devices. DIG demonstration project will join scientists, Alaska Native peoples, tourists, media makers, interpreters and technology experts in inquiry-based learning designed to maximize engagement by the general public. The radically different approach to Arctic-focused science documentary proposed here fosters the close collaboration of the scientist and media maker. Video podcasts (vodcasts) and supporting Web-based materials will be created for three current research projects in Alaska, with a focus on NSF-funded projects. Such projects include anthropology and cultural/linguistic study, paleontology, climate change research, biology, and other areas. Delivery and evaluation will emphasize tourists who visit, or are planning to visit, the National Parks of Alaska. These tourists are accessible to the research team, and they are motivated to seek out information about the places they are visiting. If successful, our approach to science education and outreach will augment their knowledge about research in Alaska, resulting in a deeper and more informed experience.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Gregory NewbyLiz O'ConnellDeborah Perry