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
Coastal Communities for Science: A Bering Sea Partnership is a 3-year program of collaboration among the WWF-US, four Alaska native rural communities and regional scientists investigating the ecology of the Bering Strait. Its primary purpose is to advance youth interaction with science and it proposes to achieve this by engaging young people from high school and beyond to conduct research with scientists. The project which involves training community youth on science and research methods, capacity building of informal educators in these rural communities to lead and encourage field-based programs, inclusion of community elders in the overall learning and communication of science concepts and the creation of a model of collaboration. The science content, an amalgam of community interest and researcher interest, is grounded in local environmental and economic issues. With WWF's support and electronic technology, this has the potential of being a model project that is broadly disseminated at local, regional and national levels.
This National Science Foundation Informal Science Education project was a "Citizen Science" weather and climate observing program focused on the Central Great Plains region of the U.S. Volunteers of all ages, primarily self selected, equipped with simple and low cost instruments for measuring rain, hail and snow, were recruited, trained and equipped to help measure and report precipitation. This region of the country is well known for its extreme and highly variable climate with strong seasonal cycles, dramatic day to day weather changes, drought vulnerability, as well as the propensity for
CoCoRaHS or the Community Collaborative Rain and Hail Study builds on previously funded NSF research on precipitation patterns in the western portion of the US. This award will expand the current citizen science efforts to include those living in the Great Plains including Eastern Colorado, Western Nebraska, Northwest Kansas and Southeast Wyoming. Participants gain experience in data collection and analysis while working with scientists and contributing to a national research study. CoCoRaHS volunteers will learn about the impact of regional weather patterns on agriculture, water resources and environmental quality while collecting rain, hail and snow data. Participants are also invited to take part in other activities to build on the research experience including a series of seminars, field trips and workshops. The project will result in the development of the following materials: graphic depictions of data using ARC-GIS software, a teacher curriculum, an upgraded website and a quarterly newsletter.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Robert CifelliNolan DoeskenSteven Rutledge
The Anchorage Museum of History and Art, working with the Calista Elders Council, will develop a 5,000 sq ft traveling exhibition presenting 19th-century Yup'ik Eskimo technologies, their contemporary applications, and the underlying scientific processes. Featuring Yup'ik artifacts, it will integrate indigenous knowledge into the teaching of basic science principles as well as demonstrate the role played by science in everyday life. The exhibition will be organized around seasonal activities practiced in the past and retaining modern relevance. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) will develop the comparative exhibits on modern science and technology, and the Imaginarium will develop complementary educational programming. Primary audiences will include rural Alaska Natives, both youth and elders, non-Native Alaska residents and visitors, as well as venues outside Alaska. By demonstrating how indigenous knowledge can be related to modern science, this exhibition provides a model for the informal science education field on how to incorporate cultural aspects of their own communities into museum exhibitions and programs. In addition, it demonstrates how artifacts and hands-on science activities can be combined effectively to create engaging educational experiences.
The Ft. Worth Museum of Science and History will develop "Texas Dinosaurs: How Do We Know? -- Regional Dissemination of Science Inquiry Exhibits and Educational Programs on Paleontology." This will be a major permanent and portable exhibition project that will be accompanied by an array of educational programs for formal and informal audiences throughout Texas. The permanent 12,000 sq. ft. exhibit, "Texas Dinosaurs: How Do We Know?", will recreate field and laboratory processes of paleontological research in an inquiry approach to public learning in geology, biology, ecology and mathematics. Portable versions of the exhibit will be distributed to the Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Headquarters, the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, the Science Spectrum in Lubbock, the McAllen International Museum, and the El Paso Insights Science Museum -- all in Texas. Regional dissemination of "How Do We Know?" exhibits and educational programs and materials will reach at least 1.5 million people annually, including isolated rural communities in the large geographic region of Texas.