Collaborative Research: Intergenerational Learning, Deliberation, and Decision Making for Changing Lands and Waters

创造能够有助于培育公正、文化繁荣和可持续发展的世界的科学教育是我们这个时代的一个重要问题。土著人民在科学领域的代表性一直偏低，从受教育程度、参与和促进基础知识创新，到制定维护和尊重土著主权的有效政策，在各种方面再现了不平等现象。必须建立科学教育模式，兼顾知识与发展、社会科学决策和公民领导，以及这些现实的复杂性和矛盾。这一为期五年的发展创新项目扩大了土著学习者的参与范围，加强了基础设施和能力，使其能够应对、适应和领导与21世纪社会生态挑战有关的变革。该项目在多个地点进行以社区为基础的设计研究，与来自太平洋、西北和五大湖的三个土著领导社区一起，开发和研究土著非正式实地科学教育的影响。该项目将通过开发模型、建设基础设施以改变非正规实地科学教育的能力产生更广泛的影响，并将产生关于21世纪紧迫问题的前沿基础知识，特别侧重于土著社区。该项目通过1)聘请土著社区成员担任研究助理，2)培训土著研究生研究员和博士后研究员，以及3)支持更多初级土著学者的职业生涯，增加土著对研究的参与。这项研究试图确定基于本土田野(陆地/水)的科学教育模式的主要设计特征，并了解学习者和教育者如何在这种学习环境中对复杂的社会生态系统和社区变化进行推理、审议、决策和领导。该项目还审查了共同设计和与部落社区建立伙伴关系的关键方面，以及这些共同生产新科学的方法如何使系统改造具有新的能力。这一多层次的项目通过3个专题小组进行组织，其中包括：专题小组1)开发和完善土著非正规科学教育模式的社区设计实验；专题小组2)共同设计和实施土著非正规科学教育的专业学习方案；专题小组3)关于社会生态系统思维及其对学习和教学实践的影响的认知和学习基础研究。在这项研究中，特别重要的是严格制定和阐明有效的教学实践和方向。更广泛地说，这些发现将对认知发展、深思熟虑和环境决策的理论产生明确的影响，特别是那些与文化和经验如何塑造知识有关的理论。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习计划(AISL)资助，该计划旨在促进对非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括为扩大获得和参与STEM学习经验提供多种途径，在非正式环境中推进对STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及加深参与者对更深层次学习的理解。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。

Creating science education that can contribute to cultivating just, culturally thriving, and sustainable worlds is an important issue of our time. Indigenous peoples have persistently been under-represented in science reproducing inequalities in a myriad of ways from educational attainment, participation in and contributing to innovations in foundational knowledge, to effective policy making that upholds and respects Indigenous sovereignty. The development of models of science education that attend to intersections of knowledge and development, socio-scientific decision-making and civic leadership, and the complexities and contradictions of these realities, is imperative. This five-year Innovations in Development project broadens participation and strengthens infrastructure and capacity for Indigenous learners to meet, adapt to, and lead change in relation to the socio-ecological challenges of the 21st century. The project engages multi-sited community-based design studies to develop and research the impacts of Indigenous informal field-based science education with three Indigenous leadership communities from the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes. This project will have broader impacts through model development, building infrastructure to transform the capacity of informal field-based science education, and will produce cutting edge foundational knowledge about pressing 21st century issues with a particular focus on Indigenous communities. The project increases Indigenous participation in research through 1) engagement of Indigenous community members as research assistants, 2) training of Indigenous graduate fellows, and post-doctoral fellows, and 3) supporting the careers of more junior Indigenous scholars. This research seeks to identify key design features of an Indigenous field (land/water) based model of science education and to understand how learners’ and educators’ reasoning, deliberation, decision-making, and leadership about complex socio-ecological systems and community change evolve in such learning environments. The project also examines key aspects of co-design and partnership with Tribal communities and how these methods of co-production of new science enable new capacities for systems transformation. This multi-layered project is organized through 3 panels of studies including: Panel 1) community-based design experiments to develop and refine a model of Indigenous informal science education; Panel 2) co-design and implementation of professional learning programs for Indigenous informal science education; and Panel 3) foundational studies in cognition and learning with respect to socio-ecological systems thinking and the impact on learning and instructional practices. Of particular importance in this research is the rigorous development and articulation of effective pedagogical practices and orientations. More broadly, findings will have clear implications for theories of cognitive development, deliberation and environmental decision making and especially those pertaining to how knowledge is shaped by culture and experience. This project 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.