Planning Grant: Building a Community Learning Ecosystem For Climate Change Resilience in Northern Colorado

规划赠款旨在为北科罗拉多州的气候适应学习生态系统提供能力，帮助北科罗拉多大学（UNC）的学生和教师与当地社区成员和机构建立联系。通过这些联系，相关人员将加深对气候变化及其区域影响的理解，以应对气候变化给当地带来的迫在眉睫的挑战。气候变化的解决方案和适应需要当地参与解决社区内的问题，而后代（即本科生）将需要了解气候破坏性事件（如干旱、野火、洪水、热浪）如何影响不同的人、学科和系统。继续维持人类文明，关键取决于来自各种背景的个人了解我们的自然和社会环境中正在发生的事情，并赋予他们作出决定的权力，以确保可持续的未来。然而，目前学术界、社会机构和社区之间缺乏有效合作的结构，阻碍了对促进长期可持续性的项目采取有针对性的行动。拟议的气候适应学习生态系统是一种以社区为基础的方法，旨在确定当地影响范围内的问题和解决方案，以建立气候变化适应能力。这个学习生态系统的目标是通过回答以下问题，通过社区项目和利益相关者的参与，加强全社会的气候变化教育、复原力和适应能力：我们社区的气候复原力是什么？为此，这项工作有三个主要目标：(1)确定如何培养学生与社区利益相关者合作，开展当地项目，建立社区对气候变化影响的复原力和适应能力；(2)在广泛学科的教师中建立有关气候变化适应能力的专业知识；(3)为社区成员开发资源，使他们能够针对气候变化挑战做出决策并采取行动。通过这一过程开发的资源、活动和成果将有助于建立学习型生态系统的有效性和框架，以及学习型生态系统如何促进气候适应能力的活动和知识体系。这项工作包括三个阶段。在第一阶段，项目负责人与社区协调员合作，绘制当地社区景观，以建立跨学科和社区的包容性联系。第二阶段涉及与社区团体进行当地情况分析，以确定私人投资机构有能力解决的与气候有关的问题。第一阶段和第二阶段为夏季研究所（第三阶段）奠定基础，该研究所将北卡罗来纳大学的教师、学生和当地社区团体聚集在一起，相互学习，确定应对当地气候挑战的战略，并评估实施赠款的必要性。该项目吸引了来自不同背景、年龄和专业发展水平的学生、教师和社区成员，目的是开发和记录一个学习生态系统，以支持协作性气候适应能力项目和解决方案。这些活动构成了未来气候可持续性和目前科罗拉多州北部不同部门和团体相互作用的基础。由该项目支持的初出茅庐的学习生态系统社区最终将有一个清晰的愿景，即他们希望如何向前迈进。最重要的是，参与者将了解气候变化将如何影响他们个人和集体在北科罗拉多社区，社区如何共同努力，以建立弹性。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。

The planning grant builds capacity for an intentional Climate Resilience Learning Ecosystem in northern Colorado that helps students and faculty at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) connect with local community members and institutions. Through these connections, those involved will build deeper understanding of climate change and its regional impacts in order to address imminent local challenges presented by climate change. Climate change solutions and adaptations require local buy-in to address issues within the community, and future generations (i.e., undergraduate students) will need an understanding of how climate disrupting events (e.g., drought, wildfire, flood, heatwaves) impact diverse people, disciplines, and systems. Continuing to sustain human civilization critically depends on individuals from all backgrounds understanding what is happening in our natural and social environments and empowering them to make decisions that will ensure a sustainable future. However, there is presently a lack of structure for effective collaboration across academia, social institutions, and communities, inhibiting targeted action on projects that promote long-term sustainability. The proposed Climate Resilience Learning Ecosystem is a community-based approach that identifies problems and solutions within local spheres of influence to build climate change resilience.The goal of this learning ecosystem is to strengthen society-wide climate change education, resilience and adaptation through community projects and stakeholder engagement by answering the question: what does climate resilience look like for our community? To this end, the work has three primary objectives: (1) identify how to prepare students to work with community stakeholders on local projects that build community resilience to climate change impacts and ability to adapt; (2) build expertise about climate change resilience among faculty from a broad array of disciplines; (3) develop resources for community members to empower them to make decisions and take action around climate change challenges. The resources, activities, and outcomes developed through this process will contribute to activities and the body of knowledge concerning the efficacy and framework for building a learning ecosystem, and how a learning ecosystem can contribute to climate resilience.This work involves three phases. In Phase 1, the PIs work with a community facilitator to map the local community landscape for building inclusive connections across disciplines and communities. Phase 2 involves local situational analysis with community groups to identify climate-related issues that the PIs have the capacity to address. Phases 1 and 2 lay the groundwork for a summer institute (Phase 3) that brings together UNC faculty, students, and local community groups to learn from each other, identify strategies for addressing local climate challenges, and evaluate the need for an implementation grant. This project engages students, faculty, and community members from a wide range of backgrounds, ages, and levels of professional development with the goal of developing and documenting a learning ecosystem to support collaborative climate resilience projects and solutions. These activities form the foundation of future climate sustainability and interaction of currently disparate sectors and groups in northern Colorado. The fledgling learning ecosystem community supported by this project will ultimately have a clear vision of how they want to move forward into the future. Most importantly, participants will understand how climate change will impact them individually and collectively in the northern Colorado community and how the community can work together to build resilience.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.