NRT: Rivers, Watersheds, Communities: Training an Innovative, Cross-Sector Workforce for Equitable, Multi-Scale Decision-Making Towards Human and Ecosystem Health

河流提供食物和清洁的水，运输通道，能源生产，生物体的旅行走廊，以及人类的文化和精神价值。尽管它们很重要，但许多河流系统受到毒素、沉积物、营养物和金属的高度污染。污染源有很多，包括工业活动、农药径流、废水处理排放和城市径流。这种污染被认为是一种无形的水危机，对许多地方的野生动物和人类健康构成严重威胁。随着这一危机在流域的升级，它对生活在这些流域的社区产生了不利影响。因此，重要的是要培训一支能够将科学信息、公共政策以及包括美洲土著部落在内的受影响社会群体的知识和关切结合起来的新的劳动力队伍，以便有效管理河流系统的资源。这个国家科学基金会研究培训（NRT）奖给华盛顿州立大学将培训来自美国各地的研究生如何研究河流，流域和社区的挑战，因为它们与人类和生态系统健康有关，并将使用哥伦比亚河流域作为研究地点。该项目预计将培训65名硕士和博士学位学生，包括25名受资助的受训人员，涉及土木和环境工程、生物科学、环境和自然资源科学、环境社会学和政治学。培训的核心是制定一种社区参与的方法，首先承认社区面临各种复杂的问题，并利用土著社区的知识来确定关键问题并实施公平的解决方案。参加该计划的学生将与社区合作，通过科学培训，研究和解决问题，共同制定解决方案和机会，以解决无形的水危机。该NRT计划将整合自然科学，工程，社会科学和传统知识，以开发河流流域社区系统的跨学科研究计划，最终将为不同社区所经历的紧迫社会问题提供公平的解决方案。计划活动的重点是两个教育和培训目标，旨在：（1）通过拥抱跨学科学习和通过社区参与知识的共同生产，引起STEM研究生教育的文化转变，以及（2）将我们的STEM研究生培训转变为以学生为中心的指导模式。教育和研究主题涉及与河流系统的水质和景观动态，影响生态系统健康的环境人为变化以及社区所经历的文化，经济或健康后果的公平缓解有关的基础和应用研究问题。实习计划为学生提供了追求个性化研究路径的灵活性，并提供实践培训经验，以培养沟通，团队合作，道德，文化知识，传统知识，跨学科和定量/计算研究方法的技能和能力。计划元素在整个学生体验中以新颖的课程，领导力培训，专注于数据集成和可视化的哥伦比亚河流域生活地图集以及多媒体通信的形式编织参与体验。以学生为中心的指导模式包括学员发展计划，外部指导和教师发展。该计划的内容将以科学和社区参与（ScienCE）证书的形式制度化，所有STEM学生都可以获得。NSF研究培训（NRT）计划旨在鼓励开发和实施大胆的，新的潜在变革模式，用于STEM研究生教育培训。该计划致力于通过创新的、基于证据的、与不断变化的劳动力和研究需求相一致的综合培训模式，在高优先级的跨学科或融合研究领域对STEM研究生进行有效培训。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Rivers provide food and clean water, transportation pathways, energy production, travel corridors for organisms, and cultural and spiritual values for people. Despite their importance, many river systems are highly contaminated with toxins, sediment, nutrients, and metals. Contamination originates from many sources, including industrial activity, pesticide runoff, wastewater treatment discharges, and urban runoff. This contamination is considered an invisible water crisis posing serious risks for wildlife and human health in many places. As this crisis escalates in watersheds, it impacts the communities living in these watersheds adversely. Therefore, it becomes important to train a new workforce capable of integrating scientific information, public policy, and the knowledge and concerns of affected social groups, including Native American tribes, for effective management of the resources of river systems. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the Washington State University will train graduate students from across the United States how to study challenges in rivers, watersheds, and communities as they relate to human and ecosystem health and will use the Columbia River Basin as the study site. The project anticipates training 65 master’s and doctoral degree students, including 25 funded trainees, from civil and environmental engineering, biological sciences, environmental and natural resources sciences, environmental sociology, and political science. Central to the traineeship is developing a community engagement approach that begins with the recognition that communities face diverse and complex issues and leverages knowledge of native communities to identify key problems and implement equitable solutions. Students participating in this program will engage with communities to co-produce solutions and opportunities to the invisible water crisis through scientific training, research, and problem-solving. This NRT program will integrate the natural sciences, engineering, social sciences, and traditional knowledges to develop a transdisciplinary research program in river-watershed-community systems that ultimately will produce equitable solutions to pressing, societal problems experienced by diverse communities. Program activities are focused on two education and training objectives aimed to: (1) cause a cultural shift in STEM graduate education by embracing transdisciplinary learning and the co-production of knowledge through community engagement, and (2) transform our STEM graduate training into a student-centered mentoring model. Education and research themes address basic and applied research questions related to water quality and landscape dynamics of river systems, anthropogenic changes in the environment that affect ecosystem health, and equitable mitigation of the cultural, economic, or health consequences experienced by communities. The traineeship program gives students the flexibility to pursue individualized research paths and provides hands-on training experiences to build skill and competency in communication, teamwork, ethics, cultural knowledge, traditional knowledges, transdisciplinarity, and quantitative/computational research methods. Program elements weave engagement experiences throughout the student experience in the form of novel courses, leadership training, a Columbia River Basin Living Atlas focused on data integration and visualization, and multi-media communication. The student-centered mentoring model includes a trainee development plan, external mentoring, and faculty development. Program elements will be institutionalized in the form of a Science and Community Engagement (ScienCE) certificate available to all STEM students.The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.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.