September 14th, 2021 | RESEARCH
Community and citizen science on climate change-influenced topics offers a way for participants to actively engage in understanding the changes and documenting the impacts. As in broader climate change education, a focus on the negative impacts can often leave participants feeling a sense of powerlessness. In large scale projects where participation is primarily limited to data collection, it is often difficult for volunteers to see how the data can inform decision making that can help create a positive future. In this paper, we propose and test a method of linking community and citizen science engagement to thinking about and planning for the future through scenarios story development using the data collected by the volunteers. We used a youth focused wild berry monitoring program that spanned urban and rural Alaska to test this method across diverse age levels and learning settings. Using qualitative analysis of educator interviews and youth work samples, we found that using a scenario stories development mini-workshop allowed the youth to use their own data and the data from other sites to imagine the future and possible actions to sustain berry resources for their communities. This process allowed youth to exercise key cognitive skills for sustainability, including systems thinking, futures thinking, and strategic thinking. The analysis suggested that youth would benefit from further practicing the skill of envisioning oneself as an agent of change in the environment. Educators valued working with lead scientists on the project and the experience for youth to participate in the interdisciplinary program. They also identified the combination of the berry data collection, analysis and scenarios stories activities as a teaching practice that allowed the youth to situate their citizen science participation in a personal, local and cultural context. The majority of the youth groups pursued some level of stewardship action following the activity. The most common actions included collecting additional years of berry data, communicating results to a broader community, and joining other community and citizen science projects. A few groups actually pursued solutions illustrated in the scenario stories. The pairing of community and citizen science with scenario stories development provides a promising method to connect data to action for a sustainable and resilient future.
Document
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.695534/full
Team Members
Katie Spellman, Author, University of Alaska FairbanksDouglas Cost, Author, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Christine Villano, Author, CV Education
Citation
Identifier Type: DOI
Identifier: 10.3389/fevo.2021.695534
Publication: Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Volume: 9
Number: 695534
Funders
Funding Source: NSF
Funding Program: Advancing Informal Science Learning (AISL)
Award Number: 1713156
Funding Program: NASA Science Activation
Award Number: NNX16AC52AFunding Source: NSF
Funding Program: NSF DEB Long Term Ecological Research Program
Award Number: 1636476
Related URLs
Public Participation in Scientific Research: Arctic Harvest
Tags
Access and Inclusion: Indigenous and Tribal Communities | Low Socioeconomic Status | Rural
Audience: Adults | Educators | Teachers | Elementary School Children (6-10) | Families | Learning Researchers | Middle School Children (11-13) | Museum | ISE Professionals | Scientists | Youth | Teen (up to 17)
Discipline: Climate | Ecology | forestry | agriculture | Education and learning science | Life science
Resource Type: Peer-reviewed article | Research | Research Products
Environment Type: Afterschool Programs | Citizen Science Programs | K-12 Programs