Water Values--Advancing Informal STEM Learning through Native Voices, Planetariums, and Reciprocal Collaboration

水是一种基本的、基本的需求。它是生物体的营养。对于许多美国原住民社区，如明尼苏达州的Ojibwe部落，水是一种神圣的宝贵生命来源，渗透到他们文化的各个方面。在这些社区，水的故事往往被用来传达水对他们和其他人生活的价值和影响。这些故事标志着地理水文，社会文化和社会政治的社会变迁。这项试点研究将探讨利用土著水资源故事和非正式学习经验向青年和公众介绍水科学和水资源可持续性问题的可行性。试点项目的一个重要成果将是一个青年博物馆教育工作者共同创建的公共天文馆展览和节目，该节目基于收集和存档的水故事。这种方法特别新颖。它通过动态的多媒体环境提供了进入STEM的入口，通常不会让青年作为经验的共同创造者。水价值将为青年及其社区提供发言权和公共平台，以提升他们自己社区内相关和及时的生态问题。它还将通过实地经验，与科学家和STEM专业的互动以及社区领导力的发展来促进科学话语。此外，该试点项目还将测试其合作伙伴之间的互惠关系模式。类似的可行性研究，水价值试点不存在于目前的NSF组合。因此，该项目不仅将有助于新兴的文学基础上的STEM，讲故事和土著文化的交叉性，但它也将有助于更广泛的讨论水的健康，获取，管理，和可持续性。试点研究将汇集长期gidakiimananiwigamig计划，与其大师教师谁是专家在文化敏感的教育，为美国土著青年，贝尔博物馆在为广大社区开发非正式STEM学习项目方面拥有数十年的经验。35名中学生、5名教育工作者和200多名社区成员将参与这项工作。在夏季住宅计划，青年将接触到干的内容和重要的水科学概念，通过实地研究和文化相关的，基于位置的课程，重点是水和沟通水的故事。这些经验将在学年期间通过周末科学活动进行扩展，这些活动将侧重于从土著社区，特别是从明尼苏达州的Ojibwe部落汇编水故事，并创造性地将这些故事整合到一个全面运作的青年博物馆共同创建的公共天文馆计划中。这个顶点天文馆表演和节目将在贝尔博物馆进行试点。关于这项研究，四个首要问题将指导这项研究：（1）参与创造水之旅故事如何增加原住民学生学习和参与STEM的动机，（2）参与创造和呈现水之旅故事如何改变原住民学生的社会政治意识？(3)原住民社区成员如何参与水的故事，以促进社会政治变革和更多地参与STEM？和（4）gidakiimananiwigamig，贝尔和UMN之间的合作如何影响STEM的兴趣和参与学生和原住民社区的变革经验？将从青年参与者、教员和领导人以及社区成员那里收集数据。这些数据将从内容调查，学生日志，自我报告的内在动机工具，观察和文物收集。调查结果将通过目标社区内外的各种机制传播。形成性和总结性评估将为这项工作提供信息，并将由外部评估公司Erikkson Associates领导。这项可行性研究由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划资助，该计划旨在推进非正式环境中STEM学习设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括提供多种途径，以扩大获得和参与STEM学习经验，推进创新研究和评估的STEM学习在非正式环境中，并发展的理解，更深层次的学习参与者。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响力审查标准的支持。

Water is an essential, basic need. It is the sustenance for living organisms. For many Native American communities, like the Ojibwe tribes of Minnesota, water is a sacred valuable life source that permeates all aspects of their culture. In these communities, water stories are often used to communicate the value and impact of water on their lives and the lives of others. These stories signal geohydrologic, sociocultural, and sociopolitical societal shifts over time. This pilot study will explore the feasibility of using Native water stories and informal learning experiences to bring water science and issues of water sustainability to youth and public audiences. A significant outcome of the pilot will be a youth-museum-educator co-created public planetarium show and program based on the water stories collected and archived. This approach is particularly novel. It provides an entry into STEM through a dynamic, multimedia context that typically does not engage youth as co-creators of the experiences. Water Values will give voice and a public platform to youth and their communities to elevate ecological issues that are relevant and timely within their own communities. It will also promote scientific discourse through field experiences, interactions with scientists and STEM professions, and community leadership development. Further, this pilot will also test a reciprocal relationship model among its partners. Analogous feasibility research to the Water Values pilot does not exist in the current NSF portfolio. Therefore, the project will not only contribute to the emerging literature base on the intersectionality of STEM, storytelling and Native cultures, but it will also contribute to broader discourse about water health, access, management, and sustainability.The pilot study will bring together the long standing gidakiimanaaniwigamig program, with its master teachers who are experts in culturally responsive education for Native American youth, and the Bell Museum, which has decades of experience in developing informal STEM learning programs for a broad community. Thirty-five middle school aged youth, five educators, and over 200 community members will engage in the work. During the summer residential program, youth will be exposed to STEM content and important water science concepts through field-based research and a culturally relevant, placed-based curriculum focused on water and communicating water stories. These experiences will be extended during the academic year through weekend science activities that will focus on the compilation of water stories from Native communities, especially from the Ojibwe tribes of Minnesota, and creatively integrating the stories into a fully operational youth-museum co-created public planetarium program. This capstone planetarium show and program will be piloted at the Bell Museum. With regards to the research, four overarching question will guide the study: (1) How does participation in creating water journey stories increase Native students' motivation to learn and engage with STEM, (2) How does participation in creating and presenting water journey stories build change in sociopolitical awareness among Native students? (3) How do Native community members engage with water stories for sociopolitical change and greater participation in STEM? and (4) How does collaboration between gidakiimanaaniwigamig, the Bell, and the UMN impact STEM interest and participation in students and a Native community for transformative experience? Data will be collected from the youth participants, instructors and leaders, and community members. These data will be collected from content surveys, student logs, self-reported intrinsic motivation instrument, observations, and artifacts. The results will be disseminated through various mechanisms within and beyond the target communities. Formative and summative evaluations will inform that work and will be led by an external evaluation firm, Erikkson Associates.This feasibility study 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.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.