Developing underserved elementary students’ systems thinking and economic literacy through investigations of local ecological-economic systems

该项目将推动更好地理解和促进实践，为缅因州代表性不足的年轻人扩大对区域相关科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）职业的获取和兴趣。该项目将通过建立和修订这些系统的计算模型，使学生参与当地海洋生态系统的调查。学生将通过参与模拟游戏来进一步探索人与自然的互动，模拟资源驱动型经济中经济决策的社会和生态影响。缅因州的水产养殖业将作为这项工作的背景，通过在活跃农场的实践学习经验，为研究海洋生态系统内的关系提供了一个环境，同时也为确定、测试和理解经济和生态系统之间的关系提供了一个背景。该项目的主要贡献包括：(1)阐明了当地学区通过行业和社区伙伴关系将参与的青年与区域劳动力联系起来的模式，(2)扩大了对缅因州不断发展的水产养殖业的参与，(3)为缅因州小学生提供了系统思维和经济推理的基础。(4)支持未来公民，他们了解基于预期未来的特定决策如何实现或不实现某些环境目标。这项调查将帮助来自缅因州农村和移民/难民社区的250多名小学生参与缅因州不断发展的水产养殖业，方法是设计一套综合的学习体验，包括在活跃的水产养殖场进行实地实践体验，与当地农民进行指导，以及以课堂为基础的活动，这些活动突出了科学建模作为一种代表、测试、理解自然界的关系。其目标是在课堂和地区劳动力之间建立一座桥梁，并发展多个领域的技能和知识，包括系统思维和经济推理，这些技能和知识可以在学生的整个学术生涯和不断发展的未来工作环境中灵活部署。本项目将采用混合方法探讨学习创新对教师和学生的经验和理解的影响。使用的工具将包括教师和学生访谈，测量学习者身份和对STEM职业兴趣的调查，以及课程在实践中的课堂观察。该项目的研究成果将阐明一种将当地青年与地区相关职业联系起来的模式，并有助于理解一种将学生与当地劳动力联系起来的学习模式如何支持STEM知识和身份的发展，特别是那些来自代表性不足背景的人。该项目由“面向学生和教师的创新技术体验”（ITEST）项目资助，该项目支持有助于提高学生对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）以及信息和通信技术（ICT）职业的知识和兴趣的实践、项目要素、背景和过程的理解。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。

This project will advance efforts to better understand and promote practices that broaden access to and interest in regionally relevant science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) occupations for underrepresented youth in the state of Maine. This project will engage students in investigations of local marine ecosystems through the construction and revision of computational models of those systems. Students will further explore human-nature interactions through participation in simulated gameplay modeling the social and ecological impact of economic decision-making within resource-driven economies. Maine’s aquaculture industry will serve as the context for this work, providing both a setting to study relationships within marine ecosystems through hands-on learning experiences at active farms, but also the context within which relationships between economic and ecological systems are identified, tested, and understood. Key contributions of this project include (1) elucidating a model for local school districts to connect participating youth with a regional workforce through industry and community partnerships, (2) broadening participation in Maine’s growing aquaculture industry, (3) providing Maine elementary students with a foundation of systems thinking and economic reasoning, and (4) supporting a future citizenry who understand how particular decisions based on anticipated futures can achieve or not achieve certain environmental goals.This investigation will prepare 250+ elementary students from rural and immigrant/refugee communities within the state of Maine to participate in Maine’s growing aquaculture industry through the design of an integrated suite of learning experiences that will include hands-on field experiences at active aquaculture farms, mentorship with local farmers, and classroom-based activities which foreground the affordances of scientific modeling as a means to represent, test, and understand relationships within the natural world. The goal is to establish a bridge between the classroom and a regional workforce, and to develop multiple areas of skill and knowledge – including systems thinking and economic reasoning – that can be flexibly deployed across a students’ entire academic career and across evolving future work environments. This project will use a mixed methods approach to explore the impact of the learning innovations on the experiences and understandings of both teachers and students. Instruments used will include teacher and student interviews, surveys measuring learner identity and interest in STEM careers, and classroom observations of the curriculum in practice. The understandings that result from the project’s research will elucidate a model for connecting local youth with regionally relevant careers and contribute to the understanding of how a learning model connecting students with a local workforce can support the development of STEM knowledge and identities, particularly in those from underrepresented backgrounds. This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.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.