Current Projects

Collaborative Research: Teaching for the Anthropocene: Teacher Learning and Practice for Critical Systems Thinking

Principal investigators: PI: Shakhnoza Kayumova, Co-PIs: Walter Stroup, Fikile Nxumalo (University of Toronto)

Funding: National Science Foundation

Abstract: Socio-environmental issues are both a key to secondary student interest in science and also a difficult terrain for teachers to navigate. Problems like climate change have not only scientific but also social, political and ethical aspects. In order to prepare students for fully understanding such issues, attention needs to be given to how teachers can be supported and learn for effective instruction. This four-year project enacts and researches a teacher professional development program, ?Teaching for the Anthropocene,? with middle and high school science teachers across three settings (the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern Massachusetts, and London, UK). It brings a concept of "critical systems thinking," which is a blend of two ideas. One of them is systems thinking, which requires students to understand not only scientific mechanisms of cause and effect, but also how systems of these come together to explain natural phenomena. The other is critical thinking, which casts light upon ways that different perspectives students bring to classrooms can support learning. This blend orients the project well to benefit society for several reasons. First, systems thinking is an important goal generally according to recent research in science education. Second, the project couches systems thinking in ecology and environmental science, which are areas of social relevance and therefore attention in student lives. Third, the project takes a broad perspective about how these learning goals should be taught so that all students? perspectives can be taken into account during instruction, including those historically underrepresented in STEM. The project investigates how critical systems thinking may enhance teachers? understanding of socioenvironmental issues and support them to integrate those understandings into their curriculum and teaching. The project also identifies potential challenges educators may face as well as what local conditions and program supports help them practically apply critical systems thinking in their classrooms. This study serves directly approximately 4000 students and contributes to broader understandings of effective STEM education that can prepare a range of diverse learners to take on the challenges of current complex socioenvironmental issues.

Connecting Undergraduates to Biodversity Instruction through Citizen Science (CUBICS)

Principal investigators: Stephen Witzig, Kathryn Kavanagh & Robert Gegear

Funding: National Science Foundation

Abstract: The CUBICS project intends to create a community of 40 college faculty and “future faculty” (graduate students and postdocs) in the SouthCoast region of Massachusetts who will use biodiversity- and climate-focused citizen science projects in their undergraduate courses. Research has shown that science faculty, while content experts in their discipline, often lack pedagogical training for connecting their scientific expertise to engage students in science. This is a problem because we consistently see students leaving STEM majors. We believe that active engagement in real scientific efforts through citizen science projects will increase undergraduate retention in science through college and into their future careers. We aim to intentionally create a community of faculty among diverse institutions, help them develop their citizen science project ideas, monitor how they execute their projects, assess the impacts on their students, and develop guidelines for expanding this idea to other regions and other scientific subject areas. The means to accomplish this goal will be a series of workshops (Summer Institutes) where faculty will gather to learn about the science, the opportunities for active involvement in citizen science, and to develop their particular projects for their courses. Each college will have a lead member who will recruit other faculty members, forming a network within and across the institutions. The community project partner includes an environmental center who will contribute expertise in environmental education as well as locations suitable for field projects. They will also contribute to and maintain their own citizen science projects. The CUBICS projects will focus on biodiversity and climate change. As such, we also aim to improve content understanding of critical environmental issues within the faculty and subsequently to the generations of students who will have the experience of contributing to real scientific efforts. The projects developed in the program will benefit local efforts to quantify change in the biodiversity and environmental parameters through the coming decades of rapid environmental change, with the goal of adding substantively to scientific efforts.