NRT: Building resilient landscapes for food, energy, water, and ecosystems in America's megalopolis

这项授予康涅狄格大学和卡里生态系统研究所的国家科学基金会研究培训(NRT)奖将支持开发一种新的研究生教育模式，专注于预测、管理和交流城市化地区食品、能源、水和生态系统面临的风险。来自气候变化、栖息地退化、过度开发和物种入侵的日益加剧的威胁威胁着获得食物、能源、水和其他生态系统服务的机会，特别是在城市。防止关键服务的损失需要准确预测这些风险。为了满足这一需求，我们将培训研究生团队预测另类未来并设计具有弹性的景观。这一培训计划将为STEM教育创建一个新颖的、贯穿各领域的框架，将协作和基于问题的学习和研究结合在一起，同时应用旨在招募和保留更多样化的学生群体的技术。学员将在身临其境的、基于团队的教育模式中培养新技能，该模式还将新知识应用于现实生活中。风险评估、管理和沟通技能的提高将造就一支高技能的劳动力队伍，能够应对21世纪对人类生命支持系统的威胁。此次实习预计将培养博士生，其中包括32名来自生命科学、工程、地理、地球科学、自然资源、统计学、经济学和计算机科学的资助学员。最终，这笔赠款将促进学生在各种职业中担任风险分析师，不仅是在学术界，而且在工业、非营利组织和政府部门也是如此。在快速城市化的世界中，社会需要对食物、能源、水和其他生态系统服务(FEWES)风险具有弹性的景观。社会面临的挑战是设计出能为人类带来多重利益、维持生态系统功能、并证明对未来风险具有弹性的景观。这个项目将解决一些悬而未决的争论，比如是要密集开发土地，让更多的土地不被开发(节约土地)，还是适度开发土地，但要覆盖更广的区域(土地共享)。为了解决这样的争论并创造从城市到野外的弹性景观，学生将学习如何应用景观风险评估来评估威胁、收益和不确定性，方法是探索景观联系并开发包括社会经济影响的情景，以在FEWE之间进行权衡。该培训还将开发一种新的、横跨STEM教育的框架，通过协同结合协作式、基于问题的和基于服务的学习来评估FEWES的风险。这些实践将结合起来开发一种独特的研究生教育方法，称为团队Terra，或基于团队的、跨学科的、风险评估和现实世界分析。学生将来自不同的背景和学科，并将学会超越传统的学科界限。学员将获得环境风险评估证书，学习如何与利益相关者合作，发展预测风险和不确定性的量化分析技能，探索管理此类风险的选择，并向客户、利益相关者和公众传达风险和不确定性。总体而言，学员将通过处理现实世界的问题学习可转移的技能，同时为政府、非政府组织和企业提供重要服务。NSF研究培训(NRT)计划旨在鼓励为STEM研究生教育培训开发和实施大胆的、具有潜在变革意义的新模式。该计划致力于通过创新的、基于证据的、与不断变化的劳动力和研究需求保持一致的综合实习生模式，在高度优先的跨学科或趋同研究领域对STEM研究生进行有效培训。该奖项反映了NSF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。

This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of Connecticut and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies will support the development of a new model of graduate education focused on predicting, managing, and communicating risks to food, energy, water, and ecosystems in urbanizing regions. Accelerating threats from climate change, habitat degradation, overexploitation, and species invasions threaten access to food, energy, water, and other ecosystem services, especially in cities. Preventing loss of critical services requires accurate predictions of these risks. To meet this demand, we will train graduate student teams to predict alternative futures and design resilient landscapes. This traineeship program will create a novel, cross-cutting framework for STEM education that combines collaborative and problem-based learning and research, while applying techniques aimed at recruiting and retaining a more diverse student cohort. Trainees will develop new skills in an immersive, team-based education model that also applies new knowledge to real-life applications. Enhanced skills in risk assessment, management, and communication will create a highly skilled workforce that can address the 21st Century threats to human life support systems. The traineeship anticipates preparing 64 Ph.D. students, including 32 funded trainees from the life sciences, engineering, geography, geosciences, natural resources, statistics, economics, and computer science. Ultimately the grant will promote the training of students for jobs as risk analysts in a range of careers, not just in academia, but also in industry, non-profit organizations, and government. In a rapidly urbanizing world, society needs landscapes that are resilient to risks to food, energy, and water, and other ecosystem services (FEWES). The challenge for society is to design landscapes that provide multiple human benefits, maintain ecosystem function, and prove resilient to future risks. This project will address unresolved debates such as whether to develop land intensely, leaving more land untouched (land-sparing) or to develop land moderately, but over a wider area (land-sharing). To resolve such debates and create resilient urban-to-wild landscapes, students will learn how to apply landscape risk assessment to estimate threats, benefits, and uncertainty by exploring landscape linkages and developing scenarios that include socioeconomic impacts for tradeoffs among FEWES. This traineeship will also develop a novel, cross-cutting framework for teaching STEM education by synergistically combining collaborative, problem-based, and service-based learning to assess risks to FEWES. These practices will be combined to develop a unique approach to graduate education called Team-TERRA, or Team-based, Transdisciplinary, Estimation of Risks, and Real-world Analysis. Students will originate from different backgrounds and disciplines and will learn to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. Trainees will earn a certificate in Environmental Risk Assessment by learning how to work with stakeholders, develop quantitative analytical skills in predicting risk and uncertainty, explore options for managing such risks, and communicate risk and uncertainty to clients, stakeholders, and the public. Overall, trainees will learn transferable skills by working with real-world problems, while providing an important service to governments, NGOs, and businesses.The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.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.