Youth Engaging in the Science of Resilience: Sensing the Environment and Envisioning Solutions (YES Resilience: SEE Solutions)

In this Innovations in Development project, university and community collaborators are implementing resilience-focused programming for youth in informal learning contexts. The project has three objectives: (1) build the capacity of community organizations to implement youth programming on climate resilience; (2) increase youth knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy associated with climate resilience (also referred to as environmental health literacy for climate resilience); and (3) explore how collaborating research universities and community organizations engage youth in informal science learning. Project partners include the UNC Institute for the Environment, the University of Washington-Interdisciplinary Center for Exposures, Diseases, Genomics and Environment, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, NC State Juntos Program, and the Duwamish River Community Coalition.

The project is engaging dozens of educators in collaborating organizations and at least 250 youth, some of whom choose to share information with their families and communities. Mixed-methods assessment will provide insight into the extent participating youth (a) develop environmental health literacy, and (b) take action in their home communities. An external evaluator will assess the fidelity of project implementation and the effectiveness of the collaboration. Findings will be disseminated to professional audiences through conference presentations and publications; and curricular materials from this project will be disseminated through the project website.