RAPID: Informal Learning about Urban Ecology through Community-Engaged Research as a Pathway to Persistence for Disaster-Impacted Students

北卡罗来纳州立大学将与50名受飓风佛罗伦萨和热带风暴迈克尔影响的本科生合作，收集有关风暴对城市森林破坏的时间敏感数据。这个社区参与的研究项目将让受风暴影响的学生参与个人有意义的、相关的学习任务。参与与灾害有关的问题可以帮助遭受灾害损失的学生增强复原力和毅力。这些学习机会也可能增加学生对科学如何帮助他们的社区和对自己作为科学家的看法的理解。该项目旨在为受灾害影响的学生提供城市生态研究体验，并衡量这种体验对学生的毅力、适应力和科学认同的影响。该项目有两个主要目标：1)促进受近期风暴影响社区学生的科学学习、适应能力和毅力；2)收集飓风对城市森林影响的重要时间敏感数据，为未来北卡罗来纳州东部及其他地区的城市生态系统管理提供信息。作为该项目的一部分，学生们将完成测试前和测试后对他们的科学身份、学术坚持和适应能力的测量，以及对林业知识和反应的评估。他们还将完成一份日报，报告他们对科学的兴趣和科学家身份的变化，以捕捉整个学习经历的渐进变化。该项目将使用摄影分析来快速评估树木受损程度和风暴对城市基础设施的影响，包括：1)在城市/区域范围内进行前后比较的航空照片和遥感图像；2)从地面拍摄360度照片，分析城市森林的三维结构和飓风破坏的影响；3)来自社交媒体帖子的图片和报道；4)利用现有历史图像进行长期比较分析。作为最后的活动，学生们将开发和策划一个纪录片展览，并在图书馆、博物馆和K-12学校展示发现。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

North Carolina State University will work with 50 undergraduate students affected by Hurricane Florence and Tropical Storm Michael to collect time-sensitive data about the storms' damage on urban forests. This community-engaged research project will involve students affected by the storms in personally meaningful, relevant learning tasks. Engaging in issues relevant to disasters can help students who have experienced losses from a disaster to develop increased resilience and persistence. These learning opportunities may also increase students' understanding of how science can help their communities and perceptions of themselves as scientists.The project aims to provide an urban ecological research experience to disaster-impacted students and to measure the impact of this experience on students' persistence, resilience, and scientific identity. This project has two major goals: 1) To promote science learning, resilience, and persistence among students from communities affected by the recent storms; 2) To collect vital, time-sensitive data on impacts of the hurricane on urban forests to inform future urban ecosystem management in Eastern North Carolina and beyond. As part of this project, students will complete pre- and post-test measures of their science identity, their academic persistence, and their resilience, as well as an assessment of forestry knowledge and responses. They will also complete a daily journal reporting changes in their interest in science and identity as a scientist, to capture progressive changes across the learning experience. The project will use photographic analysis to rapidly assess the extent of damage to trees and the storms' impacts on urban infrastructure including: 1) aerial photographs and remotely sensed images for before-after comparisons on city-/region-wide scales; 2) 360-degree photos taken from the ground to analyze the three-dimensional structure of the urban forest and effects of hurricane damage; 3) images and reports from social media postings; 4) longer-term comparative analyses using available historical images. As a culminating activity, students will develop and curate a documentary exhibit, and present findings at libraries, museums, and K-12 schools.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.