5738 Views (as of 05/2023)
  1. Donna Charlevoix
  2. Program Director
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. UNAVCO, SERC at Carleton College, American Geophysical Union
  1. Cathryn Manduca
  2. https://serc.carleton.edu/serc/cathy.html
  3. Director of SERC / Executive Director of NAGT
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. SERC at Carleton College

EarthConnections: Engaging Local Communities in Geoscience Pathways

NSF Awards: 1649367

2018 (see original presentation & discussion)

Informal / multi-age

EarthConnections joins students, communities, and science to increase the resilience of local communities in the face of environmental hazards and limited Earth resources. Through this process students engage in real-world science of relevance to them locally. Our national project established three pilots in communities historically underrepresented in the geosciences including west Atlanta, Georgia, San Bernardino, California, and Oklahoma. Each pilot is embedded in the local community and created maps that illustrate possible pathways for students into the geoscience workforce. In addition to the pathways map, structured mentoring and signposting help guide students.

In west Atlanta, students and community members are engaged in solving challenges around water overflow. American Indian students in Oklahoma will engage in understanding the unprecedented increase in earthquakes in the state. In San Bernardino, high school and undergraduate students are examining earthquake hazards as a local, serious, problem.

These groups are establishing a scalable model where a national alliance and backbone organization support regional groups. The regional groups share with one another and draw on resources from the national partners. We have learned several important things that can underpin future growth of the alliance. (1) The backbone organization is playing a critical role in generating interactions among the partners – the key benefit of alliance participation, (2) building trust and working relationships has been critical at the regional alliance level as well, (3) pathway maps have been extremely valuable in enabling discussion of what constitutes a robust pathway, (4) the combination of local and national leadership in the regional alliances is invaluable, and (5) there are multiple ways for an alliance to develop a pathway into geosciences.

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Discussion from the 2018 STEM for All Video Showcase (15 posts)
  • Icon for: William Spitzer

    William Spitzer

    Facilitator
    Vice President
    May 14, 2018 | 07:28 a.m.

    It's so great that you are working on opening up new pathways into the geoscience workforce, and that you are starting with a few communities but already thinking about how to scale up your model over time.

    I also was intrigued by how you are using the "collective impact" model as a way to structure your project. I would love to hear more about how you are thinking about what kind of backbone organization you need, and how you are helping to support collaboration among the range of partners you are engaging in each community. 

  • Icon for: Cathryn Manduca

    Cathryn Manduca

    Co-Presenter
    Director
    May 14, 2018 | 11:18 a.m.

    One of the things we have learned already is that you need an overall backbone to support communication,  processes that foster learning across the network, and network scale data collection/evaluation, but you also need backbone functions in each community to manage local development of shared vision, continuous communication, local data collection/evaluation and especially reinforcing activities.   We use the Serckit platform for our communications platform https://serc.carleton.edu/serc/about/serckit.ht... The website and associated email tools are an important communication tool for sharing progress and plans in a way that is both visible to the project and non-emphimeral with both public spaces and private workspaces (https://serc.carleton.edu/earthconnections/).&n... We have a checkpoint process and community of practice model that supports learning across the network.  Pathway maps are an important tool for the regional alliances to describe their work and how it is evolving (e.g. https://serc.carleton.edu/earthconnections/sanb... of page)

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Billy Spitzer
  • Icon for: Barbara Nagle

    Barbara Nagle

    May 15, 2018 | 04:45 p.m.

    As a partner in the project, I have been fascinated by the evolution of the pathway maps and how they can be used to identify potential connections and next steps for the regional alliances.

  • Icon for: Donna Charlevoix

    Donna Charlevoix

    Lead Presenter
    Program Director
    May 14, 2018 | 03:53 p.m.

    Hi everyone. I'm a co-lead on the project along with Cathy. We're almost 1.5 years into our project and are at the point where we are identifying what aspects of the project we're going to carry forward if we don't identify additional funds. Our project has a lot of momentum and we're confident that we'll be able to continue multiple elements of it, including the community of practice that's developed and the strong community connections of the student pathways. We'd be particularly interested in from others various ways they've sustained projects post-funding. 

    We are continuing to grow our alliance and hope you are interested in considering joining us! As you saw from the video, we are focused on environmental issues from the perspective of partnering students, communities, and scientists.  If your work intersects with us please reach out!

     

  • Icon for: William Spitzer

    William Spitzer

    Facilitator
    Vice President
    May 17, 2018 | 07:38 a.m.

    Cathy, thanks for your insights re the need for "backbone" support at multiple levels.

    And Donna, it's great that you are already thinking about what is sustainable. In my experience, it's not easy to maintain the level of activity of an R&D project after that funding ends, but there are ways to regroup and refocus or to sustain particular aspects of the work. I would guess that it may be easier to maintain some of the regional alliances, where there are natural partnerships emerging.

  • Icon for: Maia Binding

    Maia Binding

    Curriculum Developer
    May 14, 2018 | 06:06 p.m.

    I really like the model that your project has followed. I would be curious to hear more about some of the teacher's lessons that have been generated from the project, particularly the PBL lessons in San Bernardino. 

     
    1
    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Claire Pillsbury
  • Icon for: Donna Charlevoix

    Donna Charlevoix

    Lead Presenter
    Program Director
    May 15, 2018 | 04:15 p.m.

    Thanks Maia! It's a project in evolution. The goal of the project is really to be hyper-local and work with the community on solutions. In Oklahoma we've recently partnered with the Oklahoma Geologic Survey, and they are the group that is working with teachers to adapt lessons for their locations. This is an in-progress aspect of the project and if you'd like we can keep in touch on the PBL lessons.  (You can connect with me after the video showcase at: donnac@unavco.org)

  • Icon for: Maia Binding

    Maia Binding

    Curriculum Developer
    May 15, 2018 | 07:24 p.m.

    Thanks, Donna. I would be curious to hear how it goes. I work with Barbara Nagle at LHS, so I do hear some about the project via her. Always happy to hear more though (mbinding@berkeley.edu)

     
    1
    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Donna Charlevoix
  • Icon for: Sally McGill

    Sally McGill

    Higher Ed Administrator
    May 15, 2018 | 09:40 p.m.

    Hi Maia,

    In the San Bernardino regional network we have not developed any teacher's lessons as part of the EarthConnections Alliance.  However, I have worked with the high school and community college faculty who are part of our San Bernardino alliance on previous projects, which did result in a couple of teacher's lessons related to using GPS to monitor deformation around active faults.   One of the lessons can be found here: http://www.earthscope.org/sites/default/files/escope/assets/uploads/pages/GPS_Vector_Lab_complete.pdf

     

  • Icon for: Maia Binding

    Maia Binding

    Curriculum Developer
    May 16, 2018 | 11:55 a.m.

    Hi Sally, Thanks for sharing that, I'll check it out!

  • Icon for: Julianne Mueller-Northcott

    Julianne Mueller-Northcott

    Facilitator
    Science Teacher
    May 15, 2018 | 10:05 a.m.

    I love the focus on real environmental challenges that are affecting these communities. The authentic nature of the projects I am sure has a direct effect on student engagement. I am also interested to know more about how this can serve as a model for other collaborations between schools and community programs. As a teacher, these examples are exactly the kinds of relationships between schools and local environmental organizations that I would love to cultivate! What kinds of tips/suggestions do you have for schools if they wanted to use your work as a model to grow our own program with our students related to our own local issues? 

  • Icon for: Cathryn Manduca

    Cathryn Manduca

    Co-Presenter
    Director
    May 16, 2018 | 09:59 a.m.

    I think one of the easiest steps is for the school to reach out to the local college/university faculty or the local nature center/science museum.  Much of the power of EarthConnections comes from building connections between groups that are taking on different pieces of the puzzle.  The college/university faculty may well be involved in addressing needed local science.  The nature center/museum may have strong ties to the local environment. 

  • Icon for: Claire Pillsbury

    Claire Pillsbury

    Facilitator
    Program Director
    May 15, 2018 | 12:59 p.m.

    I loved the footage of the students engaged together in the measurement activities or taking samples.  At the beginning the narrator mentioned vulnerable communities and the project description identifies underrepresented students as the group you are working with.  Could the next phase of support come from transitioning to a citizen science model proposal and the students helping to take the effort beyond the schools?  Libraries are also mentioned as a partner in Oklahoma and maybe with sufficient support they could be the local workshop/training space in Atlanta and San Bernadino.

  • Icon for: Donna Charlevoix

    Donna Charlevoix

    Lead Presenter
    Program Director
    May 16, 2018 | 12:10 p.m.

    Thanks Claire. Yes, we are investigating all of these! Ultimately, I'd like to see us move to a model that is less reliant on grant funding and embed them more in the community, like your example of libraries. I'm really anxious to continue to learn (and watch) from the other projects that are here in the Showcase.   

  • Icon for: Cathryn Manduca

    Cathryn Manduca

    Co-Presenter
    Director
    May 16, 2018 | 12:43 p.m.

     All three of the pilots are working on different models for engaging students in their communities at different levels.  I like to think of them as spanning across the spectrum from class project to citizen science to student led research.  However, in all cases it is really important that they get beyond the data collection and understand the analysis and the results and make the connection to community action.

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.