Water Values--Advancing Informal STEM Learning through Native Voices, Planetariums, and Reciprocal Collaboration

水是基本的必需品。它是活着的有机体的食物。对于许多美国原住民社区，如明尼苏达州的奥吉布部落，水是一种神圣而宝贵的生命来源，渗透到他们文化的各个方面。在这些社区，水的故事经常被用来传达水对他们的生活和其他人的生活的价值和影响。这些故事标志着随着时间的推移，地理水文、社会文化和社会政治的变化。这项试点研究将探讨利用土著水故事和非正式学习经验向青年和公众传播水科学和水可持续性问题的可行性。试点的一个重要成果将是青年、博物馆和教育工作者共同创建的公共天文馆展览和基于收集和存档的水故事的计划。这种方法特别新颖。它通过动态的多媒体环境提供了进入STEM的途径，这种环境通常不会让青年参与到经验的共同创造者中来。水的价值观将为青年及其社区提供声音和公共平台，以提升他们所在社区内相关和及时的生态问题。它还将通过实地经验、与科学家和STEM专业人员的互动以及社区领导力的发展来促进科学话语。此外，该试点还将测试其合作伙伴之间的互惠关系模型。目前的NSF投资组合中不存在类似于水资源价值试点的可行性研究。因此，该项目不仅有助于建立STEM、讲故事和土著文化交叉性的新兴文献基础，还将有助于更广泛地讨论水健康、获取、管理和可持续发展。试点研究将把长期存在的gidakiimanaaniwigamig计划和贝尔博物馆结合在一起，该计划的主要教师是美洲原住民青年文化教育方面的专家，贝尔博物馆在为广大社区开发非正式STEM学习计划方面拥有数十年的经验。35名中学适龄青年、5名教育工作者和200多名社区成员将从事这项工作。在暑期住宿计划期间，青年将通过实地研究和注重于水和交流水故事的文化相关的安置课程，接触STEM的内容和重要的水科学概念。这些经历将在学年期间延伸到周末的科学活动，重点是汇编土著社区，特别是明尼苏达州奥吉布部落的水故事，并创造性地将这些故事整合到一个完全可操作的青年博物馆共同创建的公共天文馆计划中。这个顶石天文馆的展示和项目将在贝尔博物馆试行。关于这项研究，四个主要问题将指导研究：(1)参与创作水上旅行故事如何增加土著学生学习和参与STEM的动机，(2)参与创作和呈现水上旅行故事如何建立土著学生的社会政治意识变化？(3)土著社区成员如何参与水故事以促进社会政治变化和更多地参与STEM？以及(4)Gidakiimanaaniwigamig、Bell和UMN之间的合作如何影响STEM对学生和原住民社区的兴趣和参与，以获得变革体验？数据将从青年参与者、教师和领导人以及社区成员那里收集。这些数据将从内容调查、学生日志、自我报告的内在动机工具、观察和人工制品中收集。结果将通过目标社区内外的各种机制传播。形成性和总结性评估将为这项工作提供信息，并将由外部评估公司Erikkson Associates领导。这项可行性研究由推进非正式STEM学习(AISL)计划资助，该计划旨在促进对非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和发展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。

Water is an essential, basic need. It is the sustenance for living organisms. For many Native American communities, like the Ojibwe tribes of Minnesota, water is a sacred valuable life source that permeates all aspects of their culture. In these communities, water stories are often used to communicate the value and impact of water on their lives and the lives of others. These stories signal geohydrologic, sociocultural, and sociopolitical societal shifts over time. This pilot study will explore the feasibility of using Native water stories and informal learning experiences to bring water science and issues of water sustainability to youth and public audiences. A significant outcome of the pilot will be a youth-museum-educator co-created public planetarium show and program based on the water stories collected and archived. This approach is particularly novel. It provides an entry into STEM through a dynamic, multimedia context that typically does not engage youth as co-creators of the experiences. Water Values will give voice and a public platform to youth and their communities to elevate ecological issues that are relevant and timely within their own communities. It will also promote scientific discourse through field experiences, interactions with scientists and STEM professions, and community leadership development. Further, this pilot will also test a reciprocal relationship model among its partners. Analogous feasibility research to the Water Values pilot does not exist in the current NSF portfolio. Therefore, the project will not only contribute to the emerging literature base on the intersectionality of STEM, storytelling and Native cultures, but it will also contribute to broader discourse about water health, access, management, and sustainability.The pilot study will bring together the long standing gidakiimanaaniwigamig program, with its master teachers who are experts in culturally responsive education for Native American youth, and the Bell Museum, which has decades of experience in developing informal STEM learning programs for a broad community. Thirty-five middle school aged youth, five educators, and over 200 community members will engage in the work. During the summer residential program, youth will be exposed to STEM content and important water science concepts through field-based research and a culturally relevant, placed-based curriculum focused on water and communicating water stories. These experiences will be extended during the academic year through weekend science activities that will focus on the compilation of water stories from Native communities, especially from the Ojibwe tribes of Minnesota, and creatively integrating the stories into a fully operational youth-museum co-created public planetarium program. This capstone planetarium show and program will be piloted at the Bell Museum. With regards to the research, four overarching question will guide the study: (1) How does participation in creating water journey stories increase Native students' motivation to learn and engage with STEM, (2) How does participation in creating and presenting water journey stories build change in sociopolitical awareness among Native students? (3) How do Native community members engage with water stories for sociopolitical change and greater participation in STEM? and (4) How does collaboration between gidakiimanaaniwigamig, the Bell, and the UMN impact STEM interest and participation in students and a Native community for transformative experience? Data will be collected from the youth participants, instructors and leaders, and community members. These data will be collected from content surveys, student logs, self-reported intrinsic motivation instrument, observations, and artifacts. The results will be disseminated through various mechanisms within and beyond the target communities. Formative and summative evaluations will inform that work and will be led by an external evaluation firm, Erikkson Associates.This feasibility study 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.