This project's goals are to:
Enable participants to contribute to any or all stages of the scientific process and enhance their learning using an online citizen science platform and live bird cams.
Generate new scientific knowledge about wildlife.
Advance the understanding of effective project design for co-created online citizen-science projects at a national scale.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
PocketMacro is a mobile app designed by The Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University to help users better identify benthic macroinvertebrates commonly found in streams and other waterways. In Summer 2021, the app and other supplemental materials were highlighted during trainings for educators held at the Stroud Water Research Center.
The evaluation team from Rockman et al Cooperative (REA) surveyed and interviewed educators who participated in the summer trainings to determine what they took away from the experience and to gather feedback about the PocketMacro app
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Project Harvest is a co-created citizen science project that investigates the quality of household environments in Arizona communities neighboring active or legacy mining and/or toxic release. Project Harvest is a response to the community-driven questions, “Are there pollutants in harvested rainwater? Can I use the harvested rainwater for my garden?"
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
This research draws from scholarship on bonds between people and places to help understand the growing knowledge, community, and personal outcomes linked to place-based citizen science experiences.
Following an analysis of the place attachment (PAT) (an emotional bond between a person and a place) of participants in the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) citizen science program, an adapted three-dimensional model of PAT is proposed as a framework from which place-based citizen science experiences and
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Benjamin HaywoodJulia ParrishSarah InmanJackie Lindsey
This pilot and feasibility project will explore whether participation in informal science initiatives like citizen science, which is a form of Public Participation in Scientific Research, can foster or enhance participant attachment to the natural places participants investigate via these programs. The project also examines if participant attachment to place influences the development or application of critical thinking skills among adult learners. Critical thinking skills and the factors that enhance critical thinking skills are important areas of inquiry within the informal STEM learning community. Existing scholarship suggests that three components may be linked: (1) feelings of connection to specific places, (2) intentional exploration and investigation of those places (in this case via citizen science), and (3) understanding of complex socio-ecological systems, which is predicated on critical thinking skills ability. However, the degree to which these aspects are related to each other, the scale at which they occur (local to global), and the specific dimensions of place connection or informal science experiences implicated is not known. Working with the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) citizen science program, this project advances collaboration among experts from disparate fields to examine if and how citizen science contributes to increases in connection to place and higher-order critical thinking skills among participants and the potential links between those hypothesized outcomes. The ultimate goal of the project is to inform design of Public Participation in Scientific Research programming that optimizes participant learning, interest, and retention; produces societal outcomes like critical thinking in support of science literacy; and creates high quality data of the scale and grain needed to address questions and issues across the basic-applied science continuum.
This research focuses on the degree to which Public Participation in Scientific Research, specifically citizen science, may foster the presence or intensity of place attachment felt by participants for the sites and settings investigated through these programs and to what extent place attachment may be linked to higher order critical thinking skills among adult learners. A three-pronged mixed-methods research strategy will include: (1) a re-analysis of existing survey and interview data for markers of three-dimensional (personal, social, natural) place attachment as well as critical thinking skills and dispositions; (2) an assessment survey to test for the presence and intensity of place attachment and critical thinking skills; and (3) in-depth interviews to better understand the qualitative nature and development of place attachment and critical thinking skills in a citizen science context. The survey and interview sample will be drawn from participants in the COASST citizen science program and will be stratified into four groups as a function of time engaged in the program, including new, novice, and long-term participants. An independent external advisory board and a committee of visitors comprised of experts in informal science, education, and sense of place will critique and help guide this work. Results are expected to reveal important factors that impact the learning and behavioral outcomes of informal STEM initiatives by probing questions about the essential experiences, exposures, and COASST program components that facilitate deeper critical thinking skills and place attachment. Synthesizing theoretical frameworks from the fields of geography, science education, and educational psychology while testing a unique methodological approach to best measure critical thinking skills and place attachment in an informal citizen science setting will enhance knowledge-building among research and practitioner communities.
In a globalized and increasingly technologically complex world, the ability of citizens to interrogate and interpret scientific evidence, views, and values is critical. That is, scientific literacy is essential for the maintenance of robust and healthy economic, social, and environmental systems in the twenty-first century. Informal science learning fills an important gap in national educational efforts to cultivate a scientifically literate populace as research suggests that formal science training is not always capable of fostering the type of higher order critical thinking skills that undergird such scientific competency. This project aims to strengthen infrastructure and build capacity among informal science practitioners by clarifying whether specific aspects and forms of Public Participation in Scientific Research, especially those relating to people-place connections, are implicated in the development and/or application of critical thinking skills in STEM settings. This effort may expand opportunities to strengthen informal science learning program outcomes, including the cultivation of numerous 21st century skills like information literacy and social skills like conflict management. Through a greater understanding of the individual components that shape informal learning experiences and outcomes, this project also has the potential to support the broadening of participation in STEM fields by providing the groundwork for further research on whether or not underrepresented or traditionally marginalized groups of people experience and/or relate differently to both the "places" most common in citizen science and the practice of informal science programming itself.
Environmental Protectors is a four-year project based at the University of California at Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science. The project is designed to explore the educational and developmental impact of an informal science education programming model that features Community and Citizen Science (CCS) activities for youth of color residing in urban communities. The project is grounded in hypothesis that CCS-focused experiences result in learning outcomes that better position youth of color to more effectively engage in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) related educational, occupational, and civic activities. Each year, in three economically challenged urban communities located throughout the country, youth of color between the ages of 14 and 18 will participate in month-long summer or semester-long afterschool programs. These programs will feature CCS-related activities that include collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data that addresses local, pressing environmental quality concerns, such as soil lead contamination and air particulate matter pollution. The project will use a mix of qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis to assess the impact of youth engagement in these CCS activities. Overall, through its implementation the project aims to generate information useful in nationwide efforts designed to identify effective strategies and approaches that contribute to increasing STEM understanding and interest among youth of color.
Project research is guided by the following questions: A) What are ways to increase STEM engagement among those who have typically been underrepresented in Community and Citizen Science (CCS) research projects in particular and STEM in general? B) When youth are engaged in CCS, what outcomes are observed related to their science agency and science activism? What other unanticipated outcomes are observed related to benefits of participation and learning? C) How does science activism develop in youth participating in CCS?; and D) How do differences in program implementation impact youth outcomes. In particular, the project explores the manner in which particular CCS activities (e.g., project design, data analysis and interpretation, data presentation) impact youth “Science Agency,” defined as a combination of constructs that include Science Identity (i.e., sense of themselves as science thinkers), Science Value (i.e., awareness of the potential benefits of applying scientific practices to addressing critical community health and environmental issues) and Science Competency Beliefs (i.e., belief of themselves as competent science practitioners) and “Science Activism,” defined as a combination of perceived behavioral control and personal salience. Through its execution the project will refine a theory of learning that makes explicit connections between these constructs. Information derived from the execution of the project will contribute to deeper understanding of the potential for using of CCS projects as a key component of science education environments in urban areas and in general.
This Research in Service to Practice project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
Despite Mexico has coasts in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, people's connection towards the sea and marine environments is quite poor. Our commentary focuses on Mexico's coral reefs, relevant tropical ecosystems to human and oceanic welfare, and it emerges from the experience of the production of an itinerant coral reefs exhibit in Mexico, committed to the conservation and awareness of this threatened habitat. The UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development starts in 2021 and represents an opportunity to increase initiatives for public communication of science on marine and
Urban environments are remarkable natural laboratories to study ecology and speciation. These learning ecosystems are ecologically diverse and potentially more accessible for urban youth and their families. Unfortunately, disparities in STEM access continue to persist. Transportation, social and financial barriers, and a lack of awareness of STEM opportunities are a few of the inequities that significantly limit participation in STEM programs among urban youth, especially from underrepresented groups. Perceptions of who can meaningfully engage in scientific research remain demographically skewed to affluent, aged, and non-minoritized individuals. In an effort to address these challenges, this pilot study will investigate the feasibility of using remote cameras to survey local, urban wildlife to promote inclusive practices and youth engagement in STEM. A co-created curriculum will be employed, bringing urban ecologists and Detroit youth (6th-8th grade) together to participate in wildlife field experiences to garner and analyze data collected from cameras deployed through the city. It is the unique coupling of the camera surveys with authentic place-based, culturally relevant ecological research that will facilitate the innovative, experiential learning experiences. This pilot study will advance the understanding of the extent to which various facilitation methods and participation in out-of-school time programs like the Wildlife Neighbors program impact youth. From a broader impacts perspective, this work may yield positive environmental literacy outcomes and prove applicable for other urban youth in the country. The research findings would lay the foundation for future research and add novel approaches to the NSF portfolio on urban, out-of-school time environmental education programs for middle school youth using camera surveys to promote inclusivity, engagement in scientific field research, and increase youths' interest in STEM.
Through a strategic partnership between the Applied Wildlife Ecology Lab at the University of Michigan and the Detroit Zoological Society, this pilot will examine the effects of experiential learning through wildlife monitoring in twenty-four Detroit parks on strengthening four aspects of youth's environmental literacy: knowledge of ecology, competencies as researchers, empathy for wildlife, and sense of place. Youth will self-select into one of four facilitation models, each varying in intensity (summer experience, afterschool club) and mode (in-person, remote). Using camera surveys deployed in Detroit parks, youth will be immersed in ecological research, engaging them in the entire scientific process: observation, inquiry, data collection, fieldwork, data analysis and storytelling. Youth pre- and post-surveys, daily reflections on program activities, and parent/guardian questionnaires will assess impacts and experiences of the Wildlife Neighbors facilitation models and program more broadly. The research questions will explore the extent to which participation in Wildlife Neighbors: (a) differs across facilitation intensity and mode, and (b) strengthens environmental literacy among middle school urban youth when engaged in a co-created out-of-school time experiential program using remote cameras to survey local wildlife. Over the two-year pilot duration, approximately 100 youth and their families will participate in the program.
This pilot study is funded by the NSF 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.
This Pilots and Feasibility Studies 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.
This Pilot and Feasibility project will investigate: a) the kinds of learning outcomes that occur in an informal STEM project utilizing a Critical Environmental Justice-informed Participatory Action Research framework, co-created between researchers and homeless communities, and b) the challenges and opportunities that arise in evaluating such collaborative projects. To address these questions, a team of university and community researchers will work with two self-organized homeless communities, in Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD, to systematically examine air quality at their sites and further develop a multimedia environmental justice toolkit. The toolkit is aimed at equipping homeless communities with STEM-based information and approaches to learn about and address various environmental hazards. Homeless people are disproportionately vulnerable to the impacts of air and soil pollution, rodents, extreme weather, floods, fires, and other hazards. This collaboration will study STEM learning outcomes related to the broader historical socio-political context in which people are living. The project also anticipates finding ways to adapt evaluation processes to better suit the needs of marginalized groups participating in informal STEM projects.
Guided by this integrated framework, the team will undertake participant observation, interviews, focus groups, and document analysis to assess learning. It also anticipates gaining insights into how evaluation processes may be adapted to better suit the needs of marginalized groups participating in informal STEM learning. 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.
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.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Chris HawnMelanie MaloneErin GoodlingDillon MahmoudiAnthony Levenda
The RASOR project is designed to increase engagement of students from rural Alaska communities in biomedical/STEM careers. Rural Alaskan communities are home to students of intersecting identities underrepresented in biomedical science, including Alaska Native, low-income, first generation college, and rural. Geographic isolation defines these communities and can limit the exposure of students to scientifically-minded peers, professional role models, and science career pathways. However these students also have a particularly strong environmental connection through subsistence and recreational activities, which makes the one-health approach to bio-medicine an intuitive and effective route for introducing scientific research and STEM content. In RASOR, we will implement place-based mentored research projects with students in rural Alaskan communities at the high school level, when most students are beginning to seriously consider career paths. The biomedical one-health approach will build connections between student experiences of village life in rural Alaska and biomedical research. Engaging undergraduate students in research has proved one of the most successful means of increasing the persistence of minority students in science (Kuh 2008). Furthermore, RASOR will integrate high school students into community-based participatory research (Israel et al. 2005). This approach is designed to demonstrate the practicality of scientific research, that science has the ability to support community and cultural priorities and to provide career pathways for individual community members. The one-health approach will provide continuity with BLaST, an NIH-funded BUILD program that provides undergraduate biomedical students with guidance and support. RASOR will work closely with BLaST, implementing among younger (pre-BLaST) students approaches that have been successful for retaining rural Alaska students along STEM pathways and tracking of post-RASOR students. Alaska Native and rural Alaska students are a unique and diverse population underrepresented in biomedical science and STEM fields.
A team of experts from five institutions (University of Minnesota, Adler Planetarium, University of Wyoming, Colorado State University, and UC San Diego) links field-based and online analysis capabilities to support citizen science, focusing on three research areas (cell biology, ecology, and astronomy). The project builds on Zooniverse and CitSci.org, leverages the NSF Science Gateways Community Institute, and enhances the quality of citizen science and the experience of its participants.
This project creates an integrated Citizen Science Cyberinfrastructure (CSCI) framework that expands the capacity of research communities across several disciplines to use citizen science as a suitable and sustainable research methodology. CSCI produces three improvements to the infrastructure for citizen science already provided by Zooniverse and CitSci.org:
Combining Modes - connecting the process of data collection and analysis;
Smart Assignment - improving the assignment of tasks during analysis; and
New Data Models - exploring the Data-as-Subject model. By treating time series data as data, this model removes the need to create images for classification and facilitates more complex workflows. These improvements are motivated and investigated through three distinct scientific cases:
Biomedicine (3D Morphology of Cell Nucleus). Currently, Zooniverse 'Etch-a-Cell' volunteers provide annotations of cellular components in images from high-resolution microscopy, where a single cell provides a stack containing thousands of sliced images. The Smart Task Assignment capability incorporates this information, so volunteers are not shown each image in a stack where machines or other volunteers have already evaluated some subset of data.
Ecology (Identifying Individual Animals). When monitoring wide-ranging wildlife populations, identification of individual animals is needed for robust estimates of population sizes and trends. This use case combines field collection and data analysis with deep learning to improve results.
Astronomy (Characterizing Lightcurves). Astronomical time series data reveal a variety of behaviors, such as stellar flares or planetary transits. The existing Zooniverse data model requires classification of individual images before aggregation of results and transformation back to refer to the original data. By using the Data-as-Subject model and the Smart Task Assignment capability, volunteers will be able to scan through the entire time series in a machine-aided manner to determine specific light curve characteristics.
The team explores the use of recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to determine automated learning architectures best suited to the projects. Of particular interest is how the degree to which neighboring subjects are coupled affects performance. The integration of existing tools, which is based on application programming interfaces (APIs), also facilitates further tool integration. The effort creates a citizen science framework that directly advances knowledge for three science use cases in biomedicine, ecology, and astronomy, and combines field-collected data with data analysis. This has the ability to solve key problems in the individual applications, as well as benefiting the research of the dozens of projects on the Zooniverse platform. It provides benefits to researchers using citizen scientists, and to the nearly 1.6 million citizen scientists themselves.
This award by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure is jointly supported by the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings, within the NSF Directorate for Education and Human Resources.
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.
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