RCN-UBE: Youth Environmental Alliance in Higher Education

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Scientific inquiry and environmental policies increasingly depend on international research networks. Environmental challenges cannot be approached from one discipline alone, but require creative solutions developed across boundaries of discipline, country, and sector. This project uses an integrated, interdisciplinary, and international approach to train undergraduate life science students to be future leaders at the science-policy interface. The Youth Alliance in Higher Education Network is a new multi-institutional network focused on providing students with real-world experience in collaborative, evidence-based approaches to global sustainability. Participating students will be part of an on-line virtual classroom network that reaches across the U.S. and around the world. Students will learn how scientific principles are applied in national and global decision-making followed by the opportunity to participate in international environmental negotiations. This project will advance the health and security of U.S. citizens through educating students to work effectively on critical scientific issues on the international stage and prepare them for career paths in research, education, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, and/or government.The Network will build an open network of institutions of higher education to provide authentic, real-world experience in global environmental governance. The network will build and test virtual classrooms, build a library of course modules and tools for teaching students in undergraduate life science majors, and engage entry level and early career professionals through the Network Fellowship program. The Network will develop future change agents, with the multicultural and transdisciplinary perspectives, policy awareness, scientific inquiry, and the national and international networks necessary to address the global challenges of our time. The Network activities will result in (1) improved life science education with multicultural and project-based learning teams, (2) increased the scientific literacy and public engagement with science and technology for students in the life sciences, (3) broadened participation among underrepresented minorities, and (4) improved well-being and retention of these students through multicultural and interdisciplinary training. To improve STEM education, the network will facilitate new cross-institution virtual modules that train students in international scientific diplomacy. Students will directly increase public scientific literacy by sharing the results of their cross-institutional team projects in their local communities and at the annual UN Conference of the Parties climate meeting.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.