Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

Rethinking Science Communication: The Need For Dialogic, Transdisciplinary Collaboration, Julia Kiernan

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Rethinking Science Communication: The Need for Dialogic, Transdisciplinary Collaboration

Science Storytelling Beyond The Dramatic Arc: Narrativity And Little Red Schoolhouse Principles In Science Communication, Daniel A. Newman

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Narrative is widely recommended for improving science communication, yet the main approach to science storytelling is limited and limiting, advocating fixed dramatic arcs and the ideal of narrativehood, the absolute quality of being a coherent narrative. Neglected by this approach, I argue, are the finer grained linguistic patterns that give texts local narrativity, the quality of being narrative in a scalar, adjectival sense. I harmonize narrativity with the well-established principles of clear technical writing developed by Joseph Williams, then demonstrate how these principles might be used and taught through a comparative reading of several texts discussing a single topic in …

Negotiating Scientific Identity And Agency: Graduate Student Perspectives On A Public Communication Of Science Course, Lilly Campbell

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Drawing on interviews with nine graduate science students, this article explores perspectives on a Public Communication of Science (PCS) course designed to help students translate their research for a public talk given at a local town hall. I first outline the history of the student-run course and then discuss three course components—public rhetoric of science; improvisation; and audience awareness. Within each component, I describe one student’s particular experience with the course. I describe how students transferred rhetorical lessons from the course to their academic writing but could also transfer rigid views of communication from their scientific work back into their …

Addressing Mercury Contamination From Artisanal Gold Mining In Colombia: Pollution Exposure, Health Risk, And Educational Efforts In The Communities Of La Toma, Colombia, Kelli Mccourt

All Dissertations

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) has become a primary environmental and public health concern in the region of Colombia known as Alto Cauca. The predominantly Afro-descendent communities of Yolombó and La Toma in Alto Cauca have experienced pollution linked to the use of mercury in the ASGM process. For the past decade, mercury has emerged as a contaminant of increasing concern in the communities due to its toxicity and ability to bioaccumulate and biomagnify. Likewise, mining in the region raises concerns over the leaching of metals into local waters. Given the complexity of risk and pollution in the communities, …

Getting Beyond “Craap”: Scientific Literacy In Fyw And Wad, Erica Duran, Lauren M. Springer

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

While first-year writing (FYW) programs often bear the responsibility for teaching students to write across the disciplines (Downs and Wardle), too often students restrict the concepts learned in FYW to the humanities, or even worse, a single class. Moreover, students frequently complete research assignments in FYW which restrict them to scholarly or peer-reviewed sources, hindering their ability to learn how to assess popular sources. This can be especially problematic with scholarly STEM sources, which are laden with unfamiliar technical terms. Although the writing and research skills learned in FYW are often intended to be interdisciplinary, FYW faculty have opportunities to …

Incorporating Sustainability Into Utah High School's Textiles And Apparel Curriculum, Michelle Clouse

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The purpose of this study was to propose sustainability-based curriculum changes to Utah's textiles and apparel (TA) curriculum. This study's specific curriculum change proposals are limited to Sewing Construction and Textiles (SCT) 1 and Sports and Outdoor Design (SOD) 1 courses. The proposed changes were made with the input of 24 Utah FCS TA educators via a research-developed survey on Qualtrics. FCS TA educators were asked to give their input on sustainability topics already taught in their classroom, teaching methods of sustainable topics, potential barriers to incorporating sustainability into the curriculum, and their receptiveness to curriculum change.

The Teacher Attitudes …

Ways To Make Cybersecurity Education/Opportunities More Accessible In The Philippine Public School System, Joshua Oania

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

This paper will examine how the Philippines can make cybersecurity education more accessible in their public school system. The solutions it proposes include making cybersecurity a part of the school curriculum, creating summer/internship programs for Junior and Senior High School students in multiple different areas within cybersecurity, and providing basic infrastructure and resources for students to meet their educational needs and aspirations.

Learning With Treescapes In Environmentally Endangered Times

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Planting Trees In Drought Fields: A Story Of Tree Planting With Children In An Elementary School In Pakistan, Nadia Anjum

Occasional Paper Series

This story is about my experiences of getting children involved in tree planting activities in a school setting. This tree planting activity was carried out in a primary school. This is a Government Girls Elementary School situated in a village Mohra Mari, Tehsil Gujar Khan, District Rawalpindi. This school is a part of the Union Council Kauntrilla in Punjab Province in Pakistan. Tree planting activities in the school were organized by the school staff, students along with their parents who also participated as part of tree plantation campaign. Considering the important role that trees can play in protecting societies and …

Looking Down, Up, Forwards And Backwards: Telling The Story Of The Menominee Sustainable Forest, Kate Van Haren

Occasional Paper Series

The common narratives of history focus often focus on settlement and colonization. These stories often focus on the destruction of natural resources and the historic trauma of Indigenous who used and preserved them for thousands of years. The story of the Menominee, a Native nation, in southeast Wisconsin, offers a counternarrative of success. Using primary sources and the scholarship of Wisconsin-based activists, historians, and educators, this article explores the civic actions Menominee needed to protect their sustainable forest and how these lessons can be used to teach environmental stewardship in elementary classrooms.

Arboreal Methodologies: Getting Lost To Explore The Potential Of The Non-Innocence Of Nature, Jayne Osgood, Suzanne Axelsson, Tamsin Cavaliero, Máire Hanniffy, Susan Mcdonnell

Occasional Paper Series

This paper recounts a workshop that took place in a polytunnel in a forest school in Sligo, North-West Ireland on a cold day in early-December. The event sought to materialize ‘arboreal methodologies’ (Osgood, 2019; Osgood & Odegard, 2022; Osgood & Axelsson, 2023) which are characterized by the enactment of feminist new materialist praxis to engage in world-making practices (Haraway, 2008) intended to unsettle recognizable tropes of biophilia that have come to frame both child and nature in narrow ways. The arboreal methodologies that participants were invited to mobilise were situated, material, affective, and involved metaphorical and material practices of ‘getting …

Trees In Our City How A Tree And A Small Patch Of Dirt Inspired A Classroom, Zuleika Hines

Occasional Paper Series

As a new Director in a new school, I knew that I wanted the children to have a curiosity for nature. But to lead the children to a place of discovery, they would need the opportunity to observe, play, and engage in elements of nature that would support hands-on activities both in the classroom and outside. When the opportunity came for me to build my own early childhood program, I knew that I had a unique opportunity to incorporate elements of nature in the design of the classroom. But I wanted nature to be local and the trees of our …

The Refugee Trees: Treescapes As Intercultural Bridges, Kostas Magos, Irida Tsevreni

Occasional Paper Series

Forests, groves, parks as well as any area with fewer or more trees can be a suitable field for students' environmental awareness. Even a single tree as a subject of thoughtful observation can give children opportunities for discussion around many issues such as those of environmental protection, endangered species, human's relationship with nature and many more. Ιn addition to environmental awareness, trees can also contribute to the intercultural awareness of students. In all cultures without exception, trees and plants have a particularly important place and there are many myths, stories and traditions associated with them. Also, the great variety of …

Treescapes, Alexandra Délano Alonso, Marco Saavedra

Occasional Paper Series

We’ve each been looking to the trees for a long time. One of us painting, the other writing, with, by the trees. In the middle of the city and its noise, finding the branches. Standing, inquiring, returning. Why the trees, how we belong to each other, is a question worth asking again and again. These paintings and poems are part of an ongoing conversation, of many layers, of many trees, of what we lose and find under their canopies, in blooms, in dirt & seasons. What walking among the trees has taught us is that every art is an invitation …

Singing In Dark Times: Improvisational Singing With Children Amidst Ecological Crisis, Stephanie Schuurman-Olson

Occasional Paper Series

Through this research-creation project -- which is represented by a process-driven ten-minute video -- the author asks what ways of knowing emerge when children and adults, more-than-human, and inhuman engage in improvised singing together in an urban park? This project recognizes our current "dark times" within ecological collapse and operates from a space that hopes to build relationality with sonic ecologies through listening-and-singing experiences, while centering the voices of children and other singers within the ecologies we sing in-and-with.

In The Park: A Treescapes Discussion With Rex, Melanie L. Riley

Occasional Paper Series

In this video, composed of still images and video footage, two-year-old Rex leads his mother on a playful exploration through a leafy area of Alexandra Park, located in the Stockport borough of Greater Manchester in England. The park has a wide range of amenities including a reservoir, wooded area, skate park, and play park, and offers a safe and calm but exciting space for visitors. Rex enjoys being among the trees. He imagines owls in the treetops and stops to admire the tree's bark, describing it as bumpy. Rex enjoys splashing in puddles, playing peekaboo behind a tree, and running …

Painting Our Treescapes: A Visual, Gretel Olson, Ingrid Olson, Stephanie Schuurman-Olson

Occasional Paper Series

Two children (ages 6 and 9) represent an afternoon spent in their urban, wintery treescape through visual art, photo documentation, and written narrative. The first piece, "My Imaginary Forest", considers the seasons, animals, and issues of artistic representation of nature. The second piece describes the relationship between a favourite tree and a child, and considers others -- both present and future -- who also occupy "Our Knotty Tree". All of the words, visual art, and photo selection are those of the children.

Trees And Us: Learning About/From Trees And Treescapes From Primary School Children In The United Kingdom, Samyia Ambreen, Khawla Badwan, Kate Pahl

Occasional Paper Series

In recent years, there is a growing interest for attending to children’s voice in environmental research. The theoretical developments in knowledge about children view them as social agents who can make sense of their own experiences in relation to the environment surrounded them. In this report, we add reflections from an ongoing project “voices of the future” which aims to reimagine future of treescapes in the UK. Using examples from two primary schools in the northwest of England, we discuss children’s knowledge about trees and how children talk about their lived experiences with trees. Centring on our field work experiences, …

Schools Are Where Trees And Children’S Livelihoods Go To Die: A Teacher’S Reflection On Revitalizing Land-Based Education, Tiffani Marie

Occasional Paper Series

Plainly said: schools are where trees and children’s livelihoods go to die; both cut down, gutted and their desecrated remains used for the maintenance and reproduction of the establishment. Through its critique of schooling—its ties to individualism, harmful social reproduction, colonial foundations, and centering of white supremacist ideologies, this paper makes the case for land-based education as a conduit toward healing, innovation and connection. It draws links between the irreconcilable nature of youth wellness and schooling, while centering pedagogical reverence for the natural world, particularly connection with tree spaces, as part of a critical educational trajectory toward symbiotic relationship with …

Traces Of Worms, Zoey Ashcroft

Occasional Paper Series

The setting was a day spent planting trees outside the school grounds. As Zoey and her classmates planted the trees, they also recorded the activity in their notebooks. The children noticed the worms that were wriggling in the ground. Zoey recorded an activity in which leaves and then worms were lifted from the earth, and the worms then explored the page where they were put. Afterward, the worms were lifted off the page and put back on the ground. The traces of the worms were left on the page.