RCN-UBE: The Undergraduate Network for Increasing Diversity of Ecologists (UNIDE)

尽管努力扩大参与，但少数群体在生态和环境科学领域的代表性不足。尽管少数民族(亚裔、非裔美国人、拉丁裔、美洲原住民和多种族背景的人)占科学和工程劳动力的29%，但广义的环境领域的代表性只有16%。大多数扩大参与的干预措施都强调通过提供额外的课程作业和研究机会来弥补技能不足。然而，对教学和科学交流的研究表明，这些努力可能会失败，因为它们没有解决导致孤立和边缘化的文化和社会障碍，从而减少学生的留校率。文化能力理论已被应用于医学背景，它提供了一个有希望的框架，以解决在生态学和更广泛的STEM中扩大招聘和留住的障碍。该项目旨在确定具有文化价值的概念，这些概念是生态学的基础；制定以证据为基础的战略，以提高包容性；评估色盲在大学一级相对于“身份安全”教学干预措施的相对影响；以及发展和促进促进社会归属感的教学方法，以支持在生态和环境教育中加强包容性。该项目的成果将有助于发展所需的“文化财富”，使教育工作者和从业者能够独立于个人背景从事各种文化的活动。这种知识可以改善教育和纪律实践，改善招收和留住代表性不足的学生；因为认识到社会文化偏见可以为科学调查开辟新的途径，它还可以提高生态知识。由于文化能力适用于许多学科，这个网络的活动可以转化为努力增加多样性的其他STEM学科。增加生态学家多样性本科生网络将促进生态学家、教育工作者和社会科学家之间的合作，让不同的利益相关者参与进来，包括代表性不足的学生和从业者、那些与代表性不足的学生一起工作的人、那些投资于教育发展的人，以及那些在生态和环境科学领域执业的人。其目标是共同开发和评估基于循证教学模式的包容性、对文化敏感的教学工具，并培养人们对生态和环境科学的广泛兴趣和参与。该网络将举办五次年度讲习班，以建立该网络，识别生态学中隐含的社会文化偏见，确定少数群体持有的替代观点，制定和测试考虑到不同观点的教学做法，并向广大生态学家和环境从业人员传播研究结果和教学工具。该项目由生物科学局生物基础设施部和教育与人力资源局本科教育司共同资助，作为应对《本科生物学教育愿景与变革：行动号召》中提出的挑战的努力的一部分(http://visionandchange/finalreport/).This奖反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Minorities are underrepresented in ecology and environmental sciences despite efforts to broaden participation. Although ethnic and racial minorities (Asians, African-Americans, Latinx, Native Americans, and people of multi-racial backgrounds) represent 29% of the Science and Engineering workforce, representation in environmental fields, broadly defined, is only 16%. Most interventions to broaden participation emphasize fixing skill deficits by providing additional coursework and research opportunities. However, research on teaching and scientific communication show these efforts can fail because they do not address cultural and social barriers that contribute to isolation and marginalization and thereby reduce student retention. Cultural competence theory, which has been applied in medical contexts, provides a promising framework to address barriers to broaden recruitment and retention in ecology specifically and STEM more broadly. This project aims to identify culturally value-laden concepts that are foundational in ecology; to develop evidence-based strategies to improve inclusion; to assess the relative impact of color-blind compared to “identity-safe” teaching interventions at the university level; and to develop and promote pedagogy that promotes social-belonging in support of greater inclusiveness in ecology and environmental education. The results of this project will contribute to developing the “cultural wealth” that is required to empower educators and practitioners to engage across cultures independent of individual background. This knowledge can improve education and disciplinary practice and improve recruitment and retention of underrepresented students; because recognizing sociocultural biases can open new avenues for scientific investigation, it also can improve ecological knowledge. Because cultural competence applies to many disciplines, the activities of this network can be translated to other STEM disciplines that endeavor to increase diversity. The Undergraduate Network for Increasing Diversity of Ecologists will promote collaboration among ecologists, educators and social scientists to engage distinct stakeholders including underrepresented students and practitioners, those who work with underrepresented students, those who are invested in pedagogical development, and those who practice in ecology and environmental sciences. The objectives are to co-develop and assess inclusive, culturally sensitive teaching tools that are based on evidence-based pedagogical models, and to foster broad interest and participation in ecology and environmental science. The network will hold five annual workshops to build the network, identify implicit socio-cultural biases in ecology, identify alternative perspectives held by minorities, develop and test teaching practices that take diverse perspectives into account, and disseminate findings and teaching tools to the broad community of ecologists and environmental practitioners. This project is being jointly funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure, and the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, Division of Undergraduate Education as part of their efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action (http://visionandchange/finalreport/).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.