Theme of the Month

This is Bobby Wilson, Founder of Metro Atlanta Urban Farm in College Park, GA, and Co-PI on the NOISE Project with Cornell University and the National Science Foundation.  Welcome and thank you for being an active participant in this national discussion.  Science is everywhere.  Although many of us don't always understand it, none of us can survive without it.  Science is a fascinating topic.  This webinar will present STEM and STEAM topics (A is for agriculture), in a language that everyone can understand and identify with.  My goal is to help insure that access and opportunity are more than just catch phrases, but are the reality for people from all walks of life and that diversity is the assurance for equity and inclusion.  Thank you for joining the discussion.

Hi everyone! This is Carrie Tzou from the University of Washington Bothell and I am the PI of TechTales. Thank you so much for being a part of this discussion and for joining us in the webinar! We are excited to engage in discussion with you about partnering with communities and families in efforts to broaden participation in STEM. How are you doing this work? What challenges, frameworks, design principles, or theories have you encountered or articulated in your work? It would be great to learn from and with you! 

Greeting! My name is Brandon Ogbunu, and I served as the instructor for Finding Your Roots: the Seedlings. I'm an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Brown University. In addition to my basic research in genetics, I'm also very much engaged in work at the intersection between science, society & culture. I'm very honored to participate in this discussion, am looking forward to interacting, listening, and learning.

 Hello from Puerto Rico to everyone! This is Liz Diaz, associate professor at the Chemistry Department -University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus and Co-Director of the NSF-CREST Center for Innovation Research and Education in Environmental Nanotechnology (CIRE²N) and the NASA-MIRO PRSPRINT project.  In these initiatives we are working toward empowering a new generation of scientists, students and citizens that work together to solve environmental problems around them and contribute to our society’ well-being. I am very honored to participated in this discussion, and looking forward to sharing, listening and learning with you about strategies to broaden participation in STEAM and partnering with communities. Welcome and thank you for joining us in this webinar and discussion! 

Boozhoo! This is Megan Bang, professor of Learning Sciences and Psychology at Northwestern and Senior Vice President of the Spencer Foundation. Across my work I have been working to develop science education that cultivates just, sustainable and culturally thriving communities. I am looking forward to moderating the webinar today with a group of stellar scholars doing remarkable work.

I hope there will be more comments posted. The live panel was challenging to follow with all the audio problems. Applaud your efforts and welcome the multiplex! We contributed to the Finding Your Roots Genetics & Genealogy curriculum project for which C. Brandon Ogbunu was one of the first camp instructors. There is a wonderful archived collegial discussion at the project's NSF video showcase site: https://stemforall2018.videohall.com/presentations/1184

The recording from the webinar with these expert panelists is now available here on the Multiplex. Hear from Bobby Wilson, Liz Díaz-Vázquez, Carrie Tzou, and C. Brandon Ogbunu, each associated with one of the videos in this month's curated playlist, along with Megan Bang, who moderated this panel.

To the hosts and presenters: Thank you for the webinar!

I’m a program developer/evaluator/researcher/grant writer who works with communities on the South and West Sides in Chicago and thought the presentation and discussion was valuable for me (and I imagine for many others) in at least two of my work roles/identities:

1) As a person who is trying to learn how to collaborate more effectively with communities, and who is becoming more and more focused on figuring out how not to leave my partners “high and dry,” as Mr. Wilson says, and

2) As someone who is trying to figure out how to be inclusive of participants from a communication/marketing/trust-building point of view – how do we who have the means and the infrastructure construct and share opportunities to work well with those who may not have had a lot of experience with high tech webinar-type events before and/or haven’t been part of online academic or semi-academic discussions before? How do we not leave our partners “high and dry” in that sense, too?

This is something I’m trying to figure out myself with my own work – including collaborating with dominant and non-dominant organizational partners on issues stemming from the fragmentation communities in Chicago (mirroring the world in many ways) are facing – and it’s of course a very hard nut to crack.

I’m looking forward to the next webinar – unfortunately, one of my community partners in Chicago couldn’t make this last one but I’m looking forward to discussing the archived version with him – and with my partners from well-funded, high-status organizations who need to see it/discuss the issues even more urgently.

Thanks again to all for your work on this -- I find it both inspiring and helpful in a practical way, too.

I was intrigued by Bobby's comment about not leaving the community high and dry at the end of the grant, and also by the suggestion that they could be a lead partner. Would love to hear from other presenters and co-presenters whose work involved community engagement. What were your challenges? What were your strategies to sustain this work? Which communities did you work with? How did it go or how is it going?

I continue to be amazed by the unveiling of opportunities to promote the co-creation of communities where people can speak their truth and speak for themselves.  I was privileged to serve with this phenomenal panel of experts in the January edition of the STEM for All Multiplex.  The topic of “Broadening Participation in STEM through Community Engagement” suggests, ironically, a protocol where communities are invited to have a voice in what their engagement and successful outcomes will be.  It is then up to those with the power and privilege to direct funding that reflects the “value and voice” of the communities.

 As one of the four panelists, together we represented a cross-section of communities from across the United States and Puerto Rico.  The perspective that I shared with you was not of my own research.  Rather, the perspective that I brought to the panel represented the collective work of the NOISE Project, a co-created research project in conjunction with Cornell University Lab of Ornithology and the National Science Foundation (NSF).  The reason that I call this to your attention is that too often communities do not receive credit for the expertise that they bring to the table.  As a Co-PI who represents my community, I would hope that as we move forward with other projects, that we make sure that communities are valued for the expertise that they bring.  I invite you to visit the Web site, https://noiseproject.org/.

I walked away from the panel being humbled by the vast amount of knowledge that I received from the experience.  It has become evident to me that many of you really got the message that I was trying to drive home—that is understanding power and privilege, trust and transparency, communication and collaboration, and most importantly, keeping it real (realities and relevance) with the under-served communities that large institutions involve themselves with.

Furthermore, these four pillars were, and are, still part of the overarching tenets of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s message of equity, diversity, equality and inclusion.  Thus, in my opinion, it is no coincidence this response is being shared with you on the day that we celebrate his birth.

I am a believer that if we can focus our energies and efforts around these four pillars, we will be able to change the dynamics of STEAM/STEM teaching and learning.