In this article, The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) shares the programs and publications it developed to advance E-STEM—the integration of environmental education into STEM.
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Kristen Kunkle
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Brooklyn College, working with NWF Eco-Schools USA, will create The Resilient Schools Consortium (RiSC) Program that increases environmental literacy while engaging high school and middle school students in climate resilience planning and practice in New York City (NYC). The City's long-term planning document, OneNYC, sets forth a vision for a resilient city without specifying a role for students or including specific plans for their schools. This project addresses this gap by developing resilience plans for NYC schools and including student voices in the process. Student RiSC teams at NYC public schools in Brooklyn impacted by Hurricane Sandy will utilize a new Climate RiSC Curriculum based on science from the National Climate Assessment and other NOAA resources to explore the vulnerability of their schools and neighborhoods to climate change, variability and extreme weather. The RiSC teams will follow a resilience assessment process modeled after the NOAA Community Resilience Index to develop resilience projects for their schools and neighborhoods. These Students will then present their resilience plans to NYC Department of Education officials and representatives from the NYC's Office of Resilience and Recovery at RiSC Summits coordinated with the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay. The RiSC Program and Climate RiSC Curriculum will be integrated into National Wildlife Federation's Eco-Schools USA program and disseminated nationally through the networks of the project partners.
The overarching purpose of the Climate Literacy Zoo Education Network is to develop and evaluate a new approach to climate change education that connects zoo visitors to polar animals currently endangered by climate change, leveraging the associative and affective pathways known to dominate decision-making. Utilizing a polar theme, the partnership brings together a strong multidisciplinary team that includes the Chicago Zoological Society of Brookfield, IL, leading a geographically distributed consortium of nine partners: Columbus Zoo & Aquarium, OH; Como Zoo & Conservatory, St. Paul, MN; Indianapolis Zoo, IN; Louisville Zoological Garden, KY; Oregon Zoo, Portland, OR; Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, PA; Roger Williams Park Zoo, Providence, RI; Toledo Zoological Gardens, OH, and the organization Polar Bears International. The partnership leadership includes the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. The partnership is joined by experts in conservation psychology and an external advisory board. The primary stakeholders are the diverse 13 million annual visitors to the nine partner zoos. Additional stakeholders include zoo docents, interpreters and educators, as well as the partnership technical team in the fields of learning innovations, technological tools, research review and education practice. The core goals of the planning phase are to a) develop and extend the strong multidisciplinary partnership, b) conduct research needed to understand the preconceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and learning modes of zoo visitors regarding climate change; and c) identify and prototype innovative learning environments and tools. Internal and external evaluations will be conducted by Facet Innovations of Seattle, WA. Activities to achieve these goals include assessments and stakeholder workshops to inventory potential resources at zoos; surveys of zoo visitors to examine demographic, socioeconomic, and technology access parameters of zoo visitors and their existing opinions; and initial development and testing of participatory, experiential activities and technological tools to facilitate learning about the complex system principles underlying the climate system. The long-term vision centers on the development of a network of U.S. zoos, in partnership with climate change domain scientists, learning scientists, conservation psychologists, and other stakeholders, serving as a sustainable infrastructure to investigate strategies designed to foster changes in public attitudes, understandings, and behavior surrounding climate change.
I-CLEEN, a project led by the Museum of Science of Trento (Italy), has developed and currently manages an information gateway of Earth system science educational resources. The aim of the project is to support Italian science teachers in setting up Earth science student-centred lessons. To do so effectively, the gateway exhibits the following key features: it adopts a bottom – up approach to resource development that relies on strong cooperation between science teachers and professional researchers (who also act as resource referees); it is subject–oriented and enhances the multi- and interdisciplinary traits that characterize geosciences; it embraces the concept of open source, through the technological tools (LifeRay) used and copyright policies adopted. A service usability study was performed after the first launch of the gateway and the results were used to develop the second release, which is currently online. During the preliminary phase of the project, as well as the development and set-up of the gateway, valuable insight was gained in various different fields: On the current situation in geoscience education in Italy – where teachers are encouraged to take up a student-centred approach, experiential education and learning initiatives, but currently opt for academic teaching methods because they lack the support and the tools needed. On the educational resource gateways currently available online, on the materials they provide and on the role of ICT in Earth science education. On the results achieved and the tools developed during previous science communication activities that involved teachers and students in research projects.