Standard: Collaborative Research: Cultivating Cultures of Ethical STEM in Collaborations between Climate Change Decision-Support Organizations and Indigenous Peoples

美国全球变化研究项目的国家气候评估显示，美国联邦承认的部落成员的健康、繁荣和福利已经或将受到气候变化的影响，这些影响包括海平面上升、降水模式的变化以及极端天气事件频率的增加。气候科学领域的STEM领域提供了许多工具，部落决策者可以使用这些工具来了解历史上的气候变化趋势，为战略规划建立未来情景模型，并确定现在应该监测环境中的哪些指标，以保持对变化的掌握。美国总统的州、地方和部落领导人气候准备和恢复能力工作组建议美国联邦政府“提供有关气候变化影响的可操作数据和信息以及相关工具和援助，以支持各级决策。”在美国，超过75个组织——大部分是联邦政府资助的——旨在提高决策者对气候变化的准备，其中包括美国地质调查局的气候科学中心和国家海洋和大气管理局的区域综合科学和评估（RISA）中心。然而，科学组织和部落之间的关系通常会因为关键的伦理问题而变得紧张。如果不能在各方之间解决，这些伦理问题的存在可能会以某种方式破坏潜在的合作，最终阻止部落获得从科学资源中受益的公平机会。本项目旨在了解气候科学组织为员工应对与部落合作时可能出现的道德问题而采取的一系列做法，并从组织和部落的角度评估这些做法的有效性。该项目将支持美国和部落的政府和非政府组织之间更好的合作。该项目将改善政府与政府之间的关系和美国联邦政府对部落的信托责任，提高部落与非联邦非营利组织合作的能力，并创造知识，使人们认识到如何通过与决策支持组织的合作来促进部落的自决和主权。这项研究将由密歇根州立大学和梅诺米尼学院国家可持续发展研究所合作进行。具体而言，该研究使用一种调查工具来确定科学组织所开展的活动范围，这些活动将属于道德STEM文化的培养，找出这些组织及其合作伙伴的部落所学到的知识，并对组织和部落对各种活动有效性的看法进行排名。在这些发现的基础上，并与这些组织和部落合作，该项目将创建一套建议和案例研究，以向前推进，并设计评估标准，以评估新旧实践的长期影响。该项目将评估决策支持组织中特定非传统形式的伦理文化是否真的能在与部落合作时带来更好的STEM支持。该研究预计将产生关于支持道德STEM文化的非传统活动范围的知识；这项研究还将在比较期望的结果与部落认为的改善或减少合作的结果方面取得进展。这些发现将有助于填补有关STEM伦理文化的文献中的主要空白，因为很少有信息比较旨在改善基于STEM的决策支持组织和部落之间互动的非传统活动。

The National Climate Assessment of the U.S. Global Change Research Program shows that the health, prosperity and welfare of members of U.S. federally-recognized Tribes are already or will be affected by climate change impacts that range from sea-level rise to shifting precipitation patterns to increased frequencies of extreme weather events. STEM fields in the area of climate science provide a number of tools that Tribal decision-makers can use to understand historic climate change trends, model future scenarios for strategic planning, and determine what indicators in the environment should be monitored now for keeping on top of changes. The U.S. President's State, Local and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience recommended that the U.S. federal government "Provide actionable data and information on climate change impacts and related tools and assistance to support decision-making at all levels." Over 75 organizations in the U.S. - mostly federally-funded - aim to improve the climate change preparedness of decision-makers, and include organizations such as the Climate Science Centers of the U.S. Geological Survey and the Regional Integrated Sciences + Assessments (RISA) Centers of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Yet, typically relationships between scientific organizations and Tribes can be strained by crucial ethical issues. If not worked out between the parties, the presence of these ethical issues can derail potential collaboration in ways that ultimately prevent Tribes from having fair opportunities to benefit from scientific resources. This project seeks to understand the range of practices that climate science organizations employ to prepare their staff for ethical issues that will occur when engaging with Tribes and to evaluate the perceptions of the effectiveness of these practices from organizational and Tribal perspectives. The project will support better collaboration between governmental and nongovernmental organizations in the U.S. and Tribes. The project will improve the government-to-government relationship and the U.S. federal trust responsibility for Tribes, increase the ability of Tribes to work with non-federal nonprofit groups, and create knowledge that will build awareness of how Tribal self-determination and sovereignty can be advanced through collaboration with decision-support organizations. The research will be carried out as a collaboration between Michigan State University and the College of Menominee Nation Sustainable Development Institute. Specifically, the research is using a survey instrument to identify the range of activities that scientific organizations have undertaken that would fall under cultivating cultures of ethical STEM, find out what has been learned by these organizations and the Tribes they partner with, and rank the organizational and Tribal perceptions of the effectiveness of the various activities. On the basis of these findings, and in collaboration with these organizations and Tribes, the project will create a set of recommendations and case studies for moving forward and design evaluation criteria for assessing the long-term impact of old and new practices. This project will be evaluating whether particular non-conventional forms of ethical culture in decision-support organizations have actually led to better STEM support in collaborations with Tribes. The research is expected to generate knowledge about what the range of non-conventional activities are that support cultures of ethical STEM; the research will also make headway in comparing the desired outcomes with the outcomes perceived by the Tribes to have improved or detracted from collaboration. These findings will help to fill a major gap in literatures pertaining to cultures of ethical STEM because there is little information comparing non-conventional activities geared at improving interactions between STEM-based decision-support organizations and Tribes.