Developing underserved elementary students’ systems thinking and economic literacy through investigations of local ecological-economic systems

通过对当地生态经济系统的调查，培养服务不足的小学生的系统思维和经济素养

• 批准号: 2048828
• 负责人: Amanda Dickes
• 金额: $ 47.71万
• 依托单位: Gulf of Maine Research Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2048828&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Developing; underserved; elementary; students; systems

This project will advance efforts to better understand and promote practices that broaden access to and interest in regionally relevant science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) occupations for underrepresented youth in the state of Maine. This project will engage students in investigations of local marine ecosystems through the construction and revision of computational models of those systems. Students will further explore human-nature interactions through participation in simulated gameplay modeling the social and ecological impact of economic decision-making within resource-driven economies. Maine’s aquaculture industry will serve as the context for this work, providing both a setting to study relationships within marine ecosystems through hands-on learning experiences at active farms, but also the context within which relationships between economic and ecological systems are identified, tested, and understood. Key contributions of this project include (1) elucidating a model for local school districts to connect participating youth with a regional workforce through industry and community partnerships, (2) broadening participation in Maine’s growing aquaculture industry, (3) providing Maine elementary students with a foundation of systems thinking and economic reasoning, and (4) supporting a future citizenry who understand how particular decisions based on anticipated futures can achieve or not achieve certain environmental goals.This investigation will prepare 250+ elementary students from rural and immigrant/refugee communities within the state of Maine to participate in Maine’s growing aquaculture industry through the design of an integrated suite of learning experiences that will include hands-on field experiences at active aquaculture farms, mentorship with local farmers, and classroom-based activities which foreground the affordances of scientific modeling as a means to represent, test, and understand relationships within the natural world. The goal is to establish a bridge between the classroom and a regional workforce, and to develop multiple areas of skill and knowledge – including systems thinking and economic reasoning – that can be flexibly deployed across a students’ entire academic career and across evolving future work environments. This project will use a mixed methods approach to explore the impact of the learning innovations on the experiences and understandings of both teachers and students. Instruments used will include teacher and student interviews, surveys measuring learner identity and interest in STEM careers, and classroom observations of the curriculum in practice. The understandings that result from the project’s research will elucidate a model for connecting local youth with regionally relevant careers and contribute to the understanding of how a learning model connecting students with a local workforce can support the development of STEM knowledge and identities, particularly in those from underrepresented backgrounds. This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.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.

该项目将推动更好地了解和推广做法，扩大缅因州代表性不足的青年从事与区域相关的科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)职业的机会和兴趣。该项目将通过建造和修订当地海洋生态系统的计算模型，使学生参与当地海洋生态系统的调查。学生将通过参与模拟游戏来进一步探索人与自然的互动，模拟资源驱动型经济体中经济决策的社会和生态影响。缅因州的水产养殖业将作为这项工作的背景，既提供了通过活跃农场的实践学习经验研究海洋生态系统内关系的背景，也提供了确定、测试和理解经济和生态系统之间关系的背景。该项目的主要贡献包括：(1)阐明了当地学区通过行业和社区伙伴关系将参与其中的青年与地区劳动力联系起来的模式；(2)扩大了对缅因州不断增长的水产养殖业的参与；(3)为缅因州的小学生提供了系统思维和经济推理的基础；这项调查将帮助来自缅因州农村和移民/难民社区的250+名小学生通过设计一套综合的学习体验来参与缅因州日益增长的水产养殖业，其中将包括在活跃的水产养殖场的实践经验，与当地农民的指导，以及突出科学建模作为一种手段来表示、测试和理解自然世界中的关系的课堂活动。目标是在课堂和地区劳动力之间建立一座桥梁，并发展多个技能和知识领域--包括系统思维和经济推理--这些领域可以灵活地应用于学生的整个学术生涯和未来不断变化的工作环境。本项目将使用混合方法来探索学习创新对教师和学生的体验和理解的影响。使用的工具将包括教师和学生访谈，调查学生对STEM职业的认同感和兴趣，以及在实践中对课程的课堂观察。该项目研究产生的理解将阐明将当地青年与区域相关职业联系起来的模式，并有助于理解将学生与当地劳动力联系起来的学习模式如何支持STEM知识和特性的发展，特别是在那些来自代表性不足的背景的人中。该项目由学生和教师创新技术体验计划(ITEST)资助，该计划支持建立对实践、计划要素、背景和过程的理解的项目，这些项目有助于提高学生对科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)以及信息和通信技术(ICT)职业的知识和兴趣。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。