We present the assets that collaboration across a land grant university brought to the table, and the Winterberry Citizen Science program design elements we have developed to engage our 1080+ volunteer berry citizen scientists ages three through elder across urban and rural, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and formal and informal learning settings.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Katie SpellmanJasmine ShawChristine VillanoChrista MulderElena SparrowDouglas Cost
We used a youth focused wild berry monitoring program that spanned urban and rural Alaska to test this method across diverse age levels and learning settings.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Katie SpellmanDouglas CostChristine Villano
The Arctic Harvest-Public Participation in Scientific Research (which encompasses the Winterberry Citizen Science program), a four-year citizen science project looking at the effect of climate change on berry availability to consumers has made measurable progress advancing our understanding of key performance indicators of highly effective citizen science programs.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Angela LarsonKelly KealyMakaela Dickerson
The ACCEYSS (Association of Collaborative Communities Equipping Youth for STEM Success) Network and Model project, an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot, at Texas State University is forming a university-community partnership between interdisciplinary researchers (ACCEYSS research team), faith leaders and other community partners to implement an innovative model that prepares underrepresented and underserved youth to pursue undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees. The inaugural ACCEYSS network will include Texas State University, San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District, San Marcos Youth Service Bureau, City of San Marcos-Office of the City Manager, Hays County Youth Initiative, the Calaboose African American History Museum, and several local faith-based organizations. Many historic advancements have been made through the efforts and activities of faith and community leaders uniquely poised to motivate and galvanize community-based action. A collaboration among these academic institutions, social/cultural organizations, and faith partners to work with the families and youth of underrepresented/underserved populations will be an essential asset for generating new perspectives and ideas for improving STEM academic and career outcomes related to broadening participation in the scientific enterprise.
During this launch pilot, the ACCEYSS research team and network will collaborate to design and develop the ACCEYSS model as a culturally-relevant, blended-learning strategy that integrates online and in-person STEM enrichment activities (e.g., summer institute, afterschool clubs) that are aligned with the Science and Engineering Practices and Disciplinary Core Ideas Dimensions of the K-12 Next Generation Science Education Standards. The collective impact framework will be used to build diverse capacity, leverage asset-based community development, and sustain mutually reinforcing non-exclusive policies and practices for STEM diversity and inclusion. Additionally, in this launch pilot, a multifaceted design-based research approach will be utilized to support middle and high school students' interest in and pursuit of STEM studies.
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
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. 'Be a Scientist!' is a full-scale development project that examines the impact of a scalable, STEM afterschool program which trains engineers to develop and teach inquiry-based Family Science Workshops (FSWs) in underserved communities.
This paper was presented at the 122nd ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition in June 2015, by the Boeing Company, the University of Washington, College of Education LIFE Center, and the City University of Seattle. Abstract Skills-based volunteerism programs can provide technical employees effective and meaningful opportunities to utilize, develop, and transfer their skills while contributing to their companies’ community engagement objectives in K-12 education. While many companies encourage their employees to engage in education-related volunteerism, these efforts are often one-off events
This evaluation reports on the Mission: Solar System project, a 2-year project funded by NASA. The goal of the Mission: Solar System was to create a collection of resources that integrates digital media with hands-on science and engineering activities to support kids’ exploration in formal and informal education settings. Our goal in creating the resources were: For youth: (1) Provide opportunities to use science, technology, engineering, and math to solve challenges related to exploring our solar system, (2) Build and hone critical thinking, problem-solving, and design process skills, (3)
A midpoint progress poster on the Sparks of Discovery Project which connects UW-Madison NSF researchers to produce interdisciplinary science investigations that will be/have been implemented in a number of settings, including participants from underrepresented groups in science. Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) along with the Morgridge Institute for Research staff support the project and implement the education programs at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting in Washington, DC.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
University of Wisconsin, MadisonTravis Tangen
The Coalition for Science After School was launched January 28, 2004 at the Santa Fe Institute, home to the world’s leading researchers on the study of complexity. Against the dazzling backdrop of the New Mexican mesa, 40 educational leaders from diverse but overlapping domains—science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and after-school programs—met to grapple with three emerging, important trends in youth development and science learning in this country: 1. An explosion in the number of U.S. youth attending after-school programs, and increasing links between school and after
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TEAM MEMBERS:
The Coalition for Science After SchoolLeah Reisman
This Pathways project from the Ocean Discovery Institute (ODI) seeks to develop and pilot a program model designed to fill an identified gap in citizen science research and practice literature: how to effectively engage and better understand how to foster participation among people from under-represented groups in citizen science research. The ODI model is designed around six principles: (1) leaders who are reflective of the community, (2) science that is locally relevant, (3) guided, as opposed to self-guided, experiences, (4) direct interactions with scientists, (5) progressively increasing responsibilities for participants who express interest, and (6) removing barriers to participation, such as transportation, language, family involvement and access to technology. The project addresses environmentally degraded, crime-ridden local canyons, a locally relevant STEM-related issue, and leverages the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project's (SCCWRP) regional citizen science effort focused on identifying the sources and pathways of trash through regional watersheds. The scientific research components of the project focus on four canyons in the area, employing sampling methods developed by SCCWRP. Youth who are part of other ODI programs and who have demonstrated leadership and interest in science, work with the project team to scaffold family and youth participation in project activities taking place during afterschool and weekend time. Based on continued participation in the project, community participants can become more involved in the project, starting as "new scientists" and moving through "returning scientists" to "expert scientists" roles. The project evaluation seeks to identify the role and importance of the components of the proposed model with respect to participation, retention, and learning by participants from groups under-represented in STEM. The dissemination products of this Pathways project include a white paper describing the model and lessons learned as well as presentations to community groups and education and citizen science practitioners. Based on insights from the iterative approach to the model during this Pathways study, a subsequent full-scale development project would seek to engage citizen science projects around the nation in adapting the model to increase participation of individuals from groups underrepresented in STEM, including building out ODI's citizen science programming.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lindsay GoodwinRoxanne RuzicTheresa Sinicrope Talley