Youth as Scientists and Community Problem-Solvers

• In Event: Science Teaching and Learning Toward Collaborative Social Transformation and Justice

Abstract

Increasing science participation among young people from communities that have been historically underrepresented in STEM fields is a pressing issue in the US. However, such youth also often live within communities that are faced with daunting challenges of deep economic, racial, social, and environmental injustices--and youth are rarely positioned as agents to address these challenges. Recent research suggests that engaging youth in science learning and action that is deeply connected to youth’s sense of place provides opportunities for youth to leverage funds of knowledge to construct understandings of themselves as science knowers, doers, and community problem-solvers (Bang & Marin, 2015; Lim & Calabrese Barton, 2006; Author, 2016). The proposed presentation is part of a larger study that responds to youth’s duality of marginality--situated both at the margins of STEM participation and community engagement--by engaging underrepresented youth in community-specific science learning and participation.
This presentation considers how historically underrepresented and transnational youth understand their roles within places in relationship to environmental science and environmental justice issues in their communities, specifically through the lens of placemaking. In this context, we define placemaking as the processes and practices youth engage in as they affirm, interrogate, and construct knowledge about place. Our work builds upon prior research by developing the theoretical and analytical foundation for placemaking within and through science--or how constructing and interrogating knowledge about place and science within place intertwine.
Through ethnographic methods, including participant observation and focus group interviews, this research examines youth’s geolocated understandings and indications of their placemaking as science participants and problem-solvers in their communities. Participants included students taking part in an afterschool science education and youth leadership program; four program graduates also participated in a follow-up internship experience. Data were analyzed using grounded theory and a close process of recursive content analysis which allowed researchers to explore youth’s understandings of science and place both separately and as interconnected phenomena.
Data analysis revealed that youth’s considerations and emergent understandings of their regional watershed were informed by the environmental justice and activist emphasis of the afterschool and internship programs and by how youth were situated within particular places within the city that have been negatively impacted by environmental issues. Our presentation will share the following findings regarding how youth engaged in placemaking through: constructing and seeking deeper understandings of science; identifying social and temporal interconnections between places and ecosystems; positioning themselves and others in relation to place; and (re)interrogating or (re)interpreting place.
This presentation adds to current work in place-based science learning by exploring the deep connections and understandings of both science and places that matter to youth. Our research study also seeks to empower youth to address environmental concerns and injustices, many of which directly impact their communities. Fostering opportunities for minoritized youth to engage in science learning while connecting them to their region can facilitate the ongoing process of placemaking, allowing youth to envision their roles beyond hegemonic discourses and to interrogate their physical and figurative place in their communities and in science.

Authors

• Alexandra Schindel, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Ryan M. Rish, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Kendra D Ormerod, University at Buffalo - SUNY