This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
The project's goals are to:
Develop systems thinking skills in youth
Increase understanding of sustainable agricultural systems
Raise awareness of STEM careers related to agricultural systems
Leverage scientific research models and data for educational video games
Use the Corn-Water-Ethanol-Beef System as a model for interconnected Food, Energy, Water Systems (FEWS)
WCS Education is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive movement of conservation advocates. We do this by creating equitable pathways to increased scientific literacy, engagement in conservation advocacy, and lasting connection with animals and nature.
One of the programs that incorporates all of these strategies is Project TRUE (Teens Researching Urban Ecology). Project TRUE is a partnership between WCS and Fordham University that is both a social science research study and a youth development program designed to support youth in STEM career pathways. Teams of high school students
A Bioregion is where geography, the environment, and culture intersect. They are places defined by landscapes, natural processes, and human elements (BioRegions 2016). Although on different sides of the world, areas in Mongolia and Montana are thought to be bioregions because of their shared characteristics. The occurrence of these similar bioregions presents a unique opportunity to compare the challenges that each of the regions face. With the ever-increasing pressures of westernization, both cultures have in the past, and are currently experiencing rapid change in their cultural ways of life
Subsistence peoples with distinct cultures confronting challenges that threaten their future. Both are politically marginalized indigenous peoples within the dominant governments of their territories. Both find it difficult to control wildlife within their territories, and when they migrate across geographic borders into other jurisdictions. The need to regulate wildlife must be balanced with traditional cultural values and practical realities.
As a result of colonization and loss of culture in indigenous tribes across the world, there is a dire need to document and share the Traditional Ecological Knowledge that Native tribes have practiced for thousands of years. The philosophy and principals that make up the majority of Indigenous spirituality is an interconnectedness with the land, plants and animals (Barnhart 2005). This deep understanding of relationship and reciprocity can teach all of us a lesson about living with the natural world. Using Native Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge to document traditional medicinal
Language and culture loss is a growing problem among native tribes in the United States, largely due to globalization and western ideals. Culture loss ensures the loss of connection to the land. Documenting cultural practices that involve components of and relationship to the land, such as water, makes the importance of the relationship between the people and land more apparent. Mongolia and regions of Montana share many similarities, environmentally and with indigenous people’s practices. Therefore, Indigenous Research Methodologies and Indigenous sciences were utilized. This research works
Mongolia’s Darhad Valley and regions of Montana can be considered bioregions. A bioregion “encompasses landscapes, natural processes and human elements as equal parts of a whole” (BioRegions.org). Indigenous people live within both regions, and they respectively consider holistic interactions between landscapes, natural processes and humans. Both are faced with change related to developmental pursuits and globalism. Understanding and documenting language and mode of expression is an important way for community members to recognize the value of place and tradition, and how these things are
The Yellowstone Altai-Sayan Project (YASP) brings together student and professional researchers with Indigenous researchers and communities in domestic and international settings. 4 MSU and 2 tribal college student participants engaged research projects with their home communities in the western U.S.—Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux, Fort Berthold Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara—and with Indigenous communities in Mongolia Research was initiated with home communities in spring 2016, and with Indigenous researchers and herder (seminomadic) communities in the Darhad Valley of
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kristin RuppelCliff MontagneLisa Lone FightBadamgarav DovchinTaylor ElderCamaleigh Old CoyoteJoaquin Small-RodriguezEsther HallTillie StewartKendra Teague
Project TRUE seeks to increase the interest of high school students in pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics majors by increasing participants’ exposure to urban ecology research conducted with college mentors. The Lifelong Learning Group is conducting research that explores the program’s longer-term influence on academic and career choices. More specifically, the research addresses the question: How do the four key elements of youth development in Project TRUE contribute to pursuit of advanced STEM study and career path in the short- and medium-term? This report presents
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. Through a unique university-zoo partnership, Project TRUE engages New York City high school students in authentic urban ecology field research in the surrounding metropolitan area. Central to the project design is a tiered mentorship model, in which Fordham University professors mentor undergraduate and graduate ecology students, who in turn mentor high school students from communities underrepresented in STEM fields. Project TRUE also pairs the university