Collaborative Research: Research Culturally Based Citizen Science: Rebuilding Relationships to Place

这个为期三年的合作设计研究项目的目的是考察文化在发展关于自然世界的知识和推理以及随后对自然资源管理的意义形成和参与方面的作用。PIS建议审查文化如何影响观察习惯、解释构建、证据的使用和形式，以及对自然资源管理等社会科学挑战的取向。来自芝加哥美国印第安人中心、西北大学和威斯康星州梅诺米尼印第安人部落的研究人员参与了这一项目。这项研究的受众包括学术界、非正规科学教育界和土著科学教育者。该项目还为博士后和博士后研究实习生提供了广泛的跨文化、跨学科的研究机会。该项目将采用混合方法方法，并通过咨询委员会和社区意见提出评估建议。建议成立一个社区评估小组，以审查活动，从更大的社区获得反馈，并确定有效实施该计划的挑战。该项目由两个主要研究小组组成：第一个小组包括一系列关于日常活动中学习的调查，第二个小组包括两个社区设计实验，让两个美洲原住民社区和两个非原住民社区(一个农村社区和一个城市社区)参与一个基于文化的公民科学项目，重点是生态系统破坏(如入侵物种；气候变化)和自然资源管理。CBCS项目将使参与者参与问题形成、数据收集、数据分析、形成政策建议和围绕调查结果采取公民行动。该项目将开发一种公民科学模式，使不同社区有效地参与生产性科学学习、有益的科学数据收集以及公民参与社区规划和地方政策决策。研究人员认为，在整个学习环境中都需要在STEM教学和学习方面取得根本性进展，这种进步的成功可能取决于非正式环境中的创新和发现。从先前关于土著文化学习的研究中获得的见解，特别是在生物和环境科学方面的研究，与这项研究的预期结果相结合，可以加深对科学学习中跨文化的相似性和差异性的理解。

The purpose of this three-year collaborative design research project is to examine the role of culture in the development of knowledge and reasoning about the natural world and the subsequent sense-making of and participation in natural resource management. The PIs propose to examine the ways in which culture impacts observational habits, explanation constructing, uses and forms of evidence, and orientations towards socio-scientific challenges such as natural resource management. Collaborating on this project are researchers from the American Indian Center of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. The audience for this study includes the academic informal science education community and indigenous science educators. This project also offers extensive cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary research opportunities for pre- and post-doctoral research trainees.The project will employ a mixed methods approach and proposes evaluation through an advisory board and community input. A community assessment team is proposed to review activities, obtain feedback from the larger community, and identify challenges to the effective implementation of the program. The project is comprised of two main panels of studies: the first consisting of a series of investigations of learning in everyday activities and the second consisting of two community design experiments that engage two Native American communities and two non-Native communities, one rural and one urban for both communities, in a culturally based citizen science (CBCS) project focused on ecosystem disruption (e.g. invasive species; climate change) and natural resource management. The CBCS project will engage participants in question formation, data collection, data analysis, forming policy recommendations, and citizen action around the findings. This project will develop a citizen science model that effectively engages diverse communities towards productive science learning, helpful scientific data collection, and citizen engagement in community planning and local policy decisions. The researchers believe that fundamental advances in STEM teaching and learning are needed across the broad landscape of learning environments and that the success of such advances may pivot on innovations and discoveries made in informal environments. Insights obtained from prior research on learning in indigenous cultures, especially in biological and environmental sciences, combined with the anticipated results from this study could lead to a deeper understanding of cross-cultural similarities and differences in science learning.