Public Libraries Advancing Community Engagement: Environmental Literacy Through Climate Change Discussions (PLACE) is a nationally disseminated, locally-based program that engages adults in geographic-specific discussions and critical thinking about resilient responses to environmental changes and extreme weather events, through programs in their local public libraries. Historically, opportunities to increase adults’ environmental literacy have typically been available only through established science centers, and/or tended to target citizens who are already interested in environmental topics and issues. While science center hosted events and exhibits are important, reaching new and underserved audiences is imperative. PLACE engages new audiences — in their own libraries and with their own communities — by discussing their challenges, threats and helping their communities prepare for and respond to climate change and extreme weather events. PLACE will help rural and under-resourced communities build resilience to their region's’ unique vulnerabilities and threats through the following: (1) Select 50 rural and under-resourced libraries across the United States, (2) Create environmental literacy materials for library programs and professional development materials for librarians, (3) Provide professional development to participating librarians, developing their environmental literacy and fostering the use of NOAA assets for library patron services, (4) Assist libraries in finding and partnering with NOAA scientists, (5) Support libraries implementing a three-part, environmental literacy book/video/discussion program series for adults, complemented by a curated collection of NOAA assets that align with each program’s topic, and (6) Perform a summative evaluation of the impact and outcomes of the program. The project has a sustainability plan and a network in place to support the activities in an ongoing, national model for years beyond the initial project funding. PLACE leverages the model and resources of an earlier, similar program, Pushing the Limits (funded by the National Science Foundation), which demonstrated significant success in raising adults’ general science literacy in rural libraries across the United States. The project is being created, disseminated and evaluated through a partnership of The Califa Group (a California library consortium) and the National Weather Service, working in tandem with NOAA’s Office of Education.
The Wild Center will partner with Adirondack Museum, Cornell’s Maple Program, and New York State/Northeastern New York Maple Producers Associations to build regional identity, revitalize a heritage industry, and connect people to nature through the art, story, history, and science of maple sugaring. The Northern New York Maple Project will create interpretative exhibits with ecological, historical, and economic information. The museum will develop an instructional maple sugaring video; a touch-screen story kiosk that lets visitors share stories through the exhibit and social media; a storytelling workshop for staff, project partners, and maple producers; community events and conferences; a school education program; community sugaring workshops; and educational materials, website, social media, and outreach to industry, food enthusiasts, and the business community. Regular planning meetings on goals and deliverables will track results and an outside consultant will evaluate the overall success of the project.
With support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, The Wild Center (TWC) engaged Insight Evaluation Services (IES) to assess the impact of specific outreach activities of the Northern New York Maple Project between September 2013 and September 2015. Data for this two-year evaluation study were collected via in-depth telephone interviews conducted with a total of 25 participants, including 16 Tupper Tappers (Tupper Lake area residents who engaged in backyard tapping to provide sap for syrup production at the museum through the Community Maple Project), four local school teachers
Citizen science refers to partnerships between volunteers and scientists that answer real world questions. The target audiences in this project are middle and high school teachers and their students in a broad range of settings: two urban districts, an inner-ring suburb, and three rural districts. The project utilizes existing citizen science programs as springboards for professional development for teachers during an intensive summer workshop. The project curriculum helps teachers use student participation in citizen science to engage them in the full complement of science practices; from asking questions, to conducting independent research, to sharing findings. Through district professional learning communities (PLCs), teachers work with district and project staff to support and demonstrate project implementation. As students and their teachers engage in project activities, the project team is addressing two key research questions: 1) What is the nature of instructional practices that promote student engagement in the process of science?, and 2) How does this engagement influence student learning, with special attention to the benefits of engaging in research presentations in public, high profile venues? Key contributions of the project are stronger connections between a) ecology-based citizen science programs, STEM curriculum, and students' lives and b) science learning and disciplinary literacy in reading, writing and math.
Research design and analysis are focused on understanding how professional development that involves citizen science and independent investigations influences teachers' classroom practices and student learning. The research utilizes existing instruments to investigate teachers' classroom practices, and student engagement and cognitive activity: the Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation and Classroom Observation Protocol, and Inquiring into Science Instruction Observation Protocol. These instruments are used in classroom observations of a stratified sample of classes whose students represent the diversity of the participating districts. Curriculum resources for each citizen science topic, cross-referenced to disciplinary content and practices of the NGSS, include 1) a bibliography (books, web links, relevant research articles); 2) lesson plans and student science journals addressing relevant science content and background on the project; and 3) short videos that help teachers introduce the projects and anchor a digital library to facilitate dissemination. Impacts beyond both the timeframe of the project and the approximately 160 teachers who will participate are supported by curriculum units that address NGSS life science topics, and wide dissemination of these materials in a variety of venues. The evaluation focuses on outcomes of and satisfaction with the summer workshop, classroom incorporation, PLCs, and student learning. It provides formative and summative findings based on qualitative and quantitative instruments, which, like those used for the research, have well-documented reliability and validity. These include the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument to assess teacher beliefs; the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol to assess teacher practices; the Standards Assessment Inventory to assess PLC quality; and the Scientific Attitude Inventory to assess student attitudes towards science. Project deliverables include 1) curriculum resources that will support engagement in five existing citizen science projects that incorporate standards-based science content; 2) venues for student research presentations that can be duplicated in other settings; and 3) a compilation of teacher-adapted primary scientific research articles that will provide a model for promoting disciplinary literacy. The project engages 40 teachers per year and their students.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Karen OberhauserMichele KoomenGillian RoehrigRobert BlairAndrea Lorek Strauss
The project is supported under the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows (SEES Fellows) program, with the goal of helping to enable discoveries needed to inform actions that lead to environmental, energy and societal sustainability while creating the necessary workforce to address these challenges. Sustainability science is an emerging field that addresses the challenges of meeting human needs without harm to the environment, and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. A strong scientific workforce requires individuals educated and trained in interdisciplinary research and thinking, especially in the area of sustainability science. With the SEES Fellowship support, this project will enable a promising early career researcher to establish herself in an independent research career related to sustainability. This project builds upon Resiliency Theory and theories of applied community participation to explore two specific contexts of participatory communication (i.e., processes of collective learning and shared meaning) at the science-society interface: (1) adaptive co-management meetings in New Mexico and Oklahoma, and (2) existing education efforts by drought scientists at two Great Plains universities (Oklahoma State University and University of Nebraska-Lincoln). A mixed methods approach (including, household surveys, oral histories, key informant interviews, and pilot tests) will model community-partnership capacity for drought adaptation in Cimarron (OK) and Union (NM) Counties, and assess the impact of community-academic partnerships on drought literacy and adaptive capacity across the Great Plains. Research in adaptive co-management meetings and interactive media (as contexts for participatory communication between scientists and citizens) provides the context for innovative case study research on the role of public communication about science in community drought adaptation.
Collaboration in case study research with Host Mentor Vadjunec and outreach efforts with Partner Institution Mentor Thomas (UNL) offers a unique opportunity to research the intersections of participatory communication and scientific literacy about the human and climatic drivers of extreme drought. The core research questions addressed by this proposal are, (1) What formal and informal pathways, players, and partnerships exist for participatory communication between scientists and citizens about drought vulnerability and adaptation, (2) How does communication about drought risk and recovery inform the effective diffusion and translation of drought literacy efforts in the Great Plains, and (3) How can we design forums and spaces for sustained interaction (i.e., engagement and collective learning) between stakeholders involved in adaptive drought communication? The project objectives uniquely related to advancing research at the intersections of sustainability science and education are, (1) to identify dimensions of community and partnership capacity for drought education and pathways of adaptive drought communication across scales, (2) to advance dynamic participatory models which assist in the adaptive co-management of water resources in local communities (i.e., increasing citizen-science dialogue, mobilizing community leaders, and fostering the drought education partnerships), and (3) to design and measure the success of drought literacy efforts based on inputs from sustainability scientists at various stages of community decision-making. The adaptive drought co-management workshops in NM and OK provide spaces for stakeholder interaction, which may lead to new approaches, innovations, and learning outcomes for communities in those regions. Outreach partnerships with UNL maximize dissemination of user-friendly and culturally-relevant drought outreach products, including a project website to consolidate scientific knowledge about drought in the Great Plains and interactive media templates. Interdisciplinary collaborations and research findings will inform efforts in academic community partnerships for sustainable practices across many NSF-supported disciplines.
Water for Life (WfL) is a full scale development youth and community based program; centered on freshwater literacy, water conservation and rainwater harvesting led by the Pacific Resources for Education Learning (PREL) in Hawaii. The goals of the project are to: (a) promote an understanding of water conservation and stewardship in areas lacking adequate quality water supplies and (b) build local capacity among rural communities to develop and employ site specific freshwater harvesting strategies proven to improve water quality. Rural communities within four Pacific Island entities in the U.S. affiliated Freely Associated States (FAS) will participate in WfL activities. PREL is collaborating with a host of organizations (such as the Federated States of Micronesia National Department of Education, Marshall Islands Conservation Society, and the Micronesian Conservation Trust, etc.) to develop and implement all phases of the initiative. This work is already improving the quality of life for hundreds of people in the FAS through water conversation education and improved water quality in local areas. Working closely with site-embedded PREL staff, Core Teams at each site - consisting of 4-6 local leaders from environmental agencies, water/sanitation systems, and education institutions - participated in a 5-day professional learning immersion in May, 2013, to buld capacities to develop and facilitate water conservation and catchment activities at the four target sites in the FAS. The Core Team members at each site now are recruiting and collaborating with local community members to implement site-specific projects that both educate and provide enhanced access to high quality drinking water. Both adults and youth are now engaging in a spectrum of proejcts that address loca needs and priorities through site-specific service learning activities. The site-specific focus in each locale, determined by the local Core Team, is distinct. In Palau, the Core Team has built broader community awareness of water conservation issues, raised the issue of water security in national conversations, engaged remote communities in improving natural rainwater drainage collection systems, and produced youth-oriented educational materials focused on local sites. In Yap, the Core Team members have collaborated with public utilities to install first-flush diverters into community rainwater catchment systems on Yap proper, and now are installing these devices in rainwater catchment systems on Yap's neighbor islands. In Chuuk, groundwater springs in remote communities are being upgraded for improved storage capacity, protection against contamination, and better public access. In Majuro (RMI), public school rainwater catchment systems are being repaired, repainted, cleaned, and upgraded so that schools can and will provide adequate drinking water to students (and to broader segments of the community during droughts). Broad segments of communities, including school classes and clubs, church and civic groups, etc. are becoming increasingly involved in building better water security and resilience for their communities, in preparation for a predicted drought, predicted to hit in the winter of 2014-2015, brought on by an El Nino event now edevelopig in the eastern Pacific. Water for Life has produced a range of locally relevant educational materials, including books, pamphlets, flyers, etc., some in English and others in local languages. Posters and billboards are being produced to enhance and maintain public awareness. Infrastructure projects are enabling better collection of more, higher quality water for drinking. A full-scale water handbook is under development, and this will serve as a basis for a self-contained water 'course' that will be offered through local community colleges. The experiences of project participants are being captured, analyzed, and reported in front-end, formative, and sumative evaluations conducted by David Heil & Associates. Thousands of individuals, comprising large segments of the participating countries' populations, will be directly impacted by the project. The results will be applicable to other remote and rural communities outside of the Pacific distressed by poor water quality and ineffective freshwater harvesting systems.
This Pathways project, led by Hubbard Brook Research Foundation (HBRF), develops and pilots a model to foster engagement and learning among diverse stakeholders related to timely ecosystem, social, economic, and policy issues in rural regions of New England's Northern Forest. As such, this project seeks to serve as a model for how other rural areas across the US that have pressing concerns that relate to science, technology, mathematics, and engineering (STEM) may partner with scientists, community members, and local organizations to better understand and become involved in regional issues. Research carried out for more than 50 years at the 7,800-acre Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest?among the longest-running ecosystem studies in the world?has significant implications for decision making at local as well as national levels on topics including climate change, environmental stresses on tree physiology, biomass energy, and invasive pests and pathogens. By employing a Pubic Engagement with Science approach, the project goals focus on learning and equitable participation by both public audiences (local communities and organizations) and professional audiences (scientists who want to engage in informal science learning). In this case, "equitable" means valuing the experiences and knowledge that diverse people have. "Learning" is designed to occur for all participants, such that everyone has a deeper, broader, and more nuanced understanding of STEM, the regional issues, and opportunities for the future. HBRF has designed a three-part model that includes multi-stakeholder dialogue events, workshops and dialogues with scientists working in the region, and regional capacity building for supporting outcomes of the dialogues and workshops. The project evaluation aligns closely with the Public Engagement with Science approach and project goals. As such, over the course of project activities, the evaluation measures both the public's learning and capacity to engage with other stakeholder around regional issues as well as those of the scientists. In addition, the evaluation will document the strategies and capacities of the HBRF model to broaden and sustain productive interactions among diverse regional stakeholders. Dissemination of this pilot project's findings include a case study reflecting on the process, lessons learned, and potential best practices related to the PES model as well as presentations by project leadership at community, scientific, and educational meetings. The pilot would then provide a foundation for an on-going, expanded effort for HBRF in the Northern Forest and/or an expanded effort in the region around a set off issues. In either case, the full-scale project would build from the refined model as well as the capacity built through the pilot.
Our Instrumented Earth: Understanding Global Systems and Local Impacts through the El Nino Story centers on a new production displayed on Science on a Sphere® (SOS), and informal educational program elements to engage learners in the power and purpose of NASA data-gathering tools. Audiences include over two million visitors to partner institutions, serving both urban and rural constituencies that rank among the most diverse in the nation. The Aquarium has partnered with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) and NASA Goddard Space Center to implement elements of the program, as well as NASA scientists and experts to develop content. There are two main project goals for Our Instrumented Earth: to create a NASA-informed public by creating an SOS production which highlights space technologies and other instruments monitoring Earth; and to enhance the STEM capacity of underserved teachers, parents, and students through teacher professional development and outreach events. Major project deliverables for Our Instrumented Earth include: a brand new SOS film production, an adapted program for the Magic Planet spherical display platform to serve rural communities, professional development workshop for formal teachers, and NASA Night outreach events at the Aquarium.
This Pathways Project connects rural, underserved youth and families in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho to STEM concepts important in sustainable building design. The project is a collaboration of the Palouse Discovery Science Center (Pullman, WA), Washington State University and University of Idaho, working in partnership with rural community organizations and businesses. The deliverables include: 1) interactive exhibit prototype activities, 2) a team cooperative learning problem-solving challenge, and (3) take-home materials to encourage participants to use what they have learned to investigate ways to make their homes more energy-efficient and sustainable. The project introduces youth and families to the traditionally difficult physics concept of thermal energy, particularly as it relates to sustainable building design. Participants explore how building materials and their properties can be used to control all three types of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. The interactive exhibit prototypes are coupled with an Energy Efficient Engineering Challenge in which participants, working in cooperative learning teams, use information learned from the exhibit prototype activities to retrofit a model house, improving its energy efficiency. The project components are piloted at the Palouse Discovery Science Center, and then travel to three underserved rural/tribal communities in Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Front-end and formative evaluation studies will demonstrate whether this model advances participant understanding of and interest in STEM topics and careers. The project will yield information about ways that other ISE practitioners can effectively incorporate cooperative learning strategies in informal settings to improve the transferability of knowledge gained from exhibits to real-world problem-solving challenges, especially for rural and underserved audiences. This project will also provide the ISE field with: 1) a model for increasing the capacity of small, rural science centers to form collaborative regional networks that draw on previously unused resources in their communities and provide more effective outreach to the underrepresented populations they serve, and 2) a model for coupling cooperative learning with outreach exhibits, providing richer experiences of active engagement.
The purpose of this three-year collaborative design research project is to examine the role of culture in the development of knowledge and reasoning about the natural world and the subsequent sense-making of and participation in natural resource management. The PIs propose to examine the ways in which culture impacts observational habits, explanation constructing, uses and forms of evidence, and orientations towards socio-scientific challenges such as natural resource management. Collaborating on this project are researchers from the American Indian Center of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. The audience for this study includes the academic informal science education community and indigenous science educators. This project also offers extensive cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary research opportunities for pre- and post-doctoral research trainees. The project will employ a mixed methods approach and proposes evaluation through an advisory board and community input. A community assessment team is proposed to review activities, obtain feedback from the larger community, and identify challenges to the effective implementation of the program. The project is comprised of two main panels of studies: the first consisting of a series of investigations of learning in everyday activities and the second consisting of two community design experiments that engage two Native American communities and two non-Native communities, one rural and one urban for both communities, in a culturally based citizen science (CBCS) project focused on ecosystem disruption (e.g. invasive species; climate change) and natural resource management. The CBCS project will engage participants in question formation, data collection, data analysis, forming policy recommendations, and citizen action around the findings. This project will develop a citizen science model that effectively engages diverse communities towards productive science learning, helpful scientific data collection, and citizen engagement in community planning and local policy decisions. The researchers believe that fundamental advances in STEM teaching and learning are needed across the broad landscape of learning environments and that the success of such advances may pivot on innovations and discoveries made in informal environments. Insights obtained from prior research on learning in indigenous cultures, especially in biological and environmental sciences, combined with the anticipated results from this study could lead to a deeper understanding of cross-cultural similarities and differences in science learning.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Karen WashinawatokMegan BangDouglas MedinUniversity of Washington
Ocean science is important for the public to understand as the impact of water as a resource has become more significant in recent years. 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 including rural communities. This project's goals are to educate rural communities and youth about ocean science via setting up exhibits in unique venues such as parks, parking lots and at community gatherings as well as in local libraries. Local library staff and Girl Scouts will assist the investigators in operationalizing the community activities. The project is a collaboration between the Consortium for Leadership, Inc., Rutgers University, the University of Hawaii, Ashland University, the College of Exploration, the Girl Scout organization and some of its affiliates, the Rural Library Education Network, local museums, and the Texas State Aquarium. This project will experiment with a new style of presentation called "Pop up" which brings in exhibits that are rapidly and easily set up in unconventional venues such as parks to get the communities' attention. From among the visitors attending the "Pop up" sessions, the organizers will invite those who have shown interest to attend deeper discussions of ocean science at the local library. This deeper discussion, referred to as "Drill down", will involve scientists commenting from a research ship on their research activities. Cores from the ocean floor will be used to educate attendees about the history of the planet. Locations of the project venues will include rural communities that have a high population of underserved citizens. Research questions to be investigated are: 1. Do the "Pop up" and "Drill down" exercises create an effective and sustainable model for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning? 2. How does the "Pop up/Drill down" methodology meet the needs of partner informal science education institutions such as the libraries and Girl Scouts in fulfilling their own missions? 3. What is the impact of these sessions on increasing awareness and knowledge of ocean and earth science, technology, and the work of scientists/engineers?
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sharon CooperKevin JohnsonCarrie FerraroKaterina Petronotis