Science teaching through the arts: Bringing state-of-the-art environmental health education to youth in agricultural communities

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Project Abstract: In California, Hispanics made up 38% of the population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010), and by 2040, will comprise an estimated 50% of the working-age population. In the US, Latinx college graduates are slowly increasing but less than 10% earn degrees in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Our study area is the Salinas Valley, known as the “salad bowl of the world,” and where ~80% of the 78,000 students served by Monterey County public schools are Mexican-American primarily from farmworker families. In Salinas Unified School District, only 21% of students met or exceeded CAASPP Mathematics standards and only 8% of 11th grade students reported a high level of opportunities for meaningful participation at school. Thus, these Salinas Valley students face many challenges, including low income, English as a second language, poor housing, violence and gang activity, water contamination, and exposures to pesticides and nitrate fertilizers and other emissions from agriculture. The valley directly connects to the Pacific Ocean and Monterey Bay, where these pollutants affect the marine ecosystem and also circle back and impact human health. Improved STEM skill-sets that include environmental health literacy can help students learn how to solve environmental challenges and enter an expanding science-based labor sector. Few curricula clarify the relationship between the health of oceans and human health. We aim to improve local environmental health literacy in schools serving youth in these low-income agricultural communities by developing an integrated Environmental Health Partnership and using the arts (visual, music, theater) to improve understanding of the sciences and widen translation to a larger community (STEAM). California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB), a Hispanic-Serving Institution and national leader in science education will lead the partnership, with contributions from the Monterey County Office of Education (MCOE), the Monterey Bay Aquarium (MBA) and its longstanding teacher training summits, the CHAMACOS study (the University of California, Berkeley) with its 20 years history engaging youth in environmental health community projects in the Salinas valley, and local community-based art groups. To accomplish our goals, we will: (1) contribute environmental health expertise to MCOE implementation of NGSS standards; (2) integrate environmental health literacy into NGSS-aligned Aquarium teacher training programs addressing ocean plastics, climate change, and agriculture and with Salinas Valley teachers, conduct project-based learning approaches to these subject area; evaluate the impacts of these training programs on student knowledge, competency, and self-efficacy; and, (3) work with youth to develop and showcase professional-grade art productions to bring environmental health literacy education to wider audiences.