"Learning Environmental Sustainability in Community Spaces Through E-Corps": The Establishment of an Epistemic Community (Poster 13)

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: Broadening Knowledge and Ways of Knowing Through Community Engagement (San Diego)

Abstract

Environment Corps (E-Corps) is a group of service-learning courses that aid communities with environmental problems. Using thematic analysis of interviews and observations with students and faculty, we identify the conditions supporting the establishment of E-Corps’ epistemic community. We employ frameworks of 1) Design Based Implementation Research (DBIR), which considers problems from multiple stakeholders’ perspectives, collaborative design, pedagogical theory, and sustainable change, and 2) epistemic communities—the stakeholders creating pedagogical knowledge. E-Corps’ epistemic community was supported by 1) a university with a longstanding epistemic community and a resource-rich environment; and 2) a team orientation to the university-community partnership with aligned pedagogical practices. Our work informs research on DBIR and epistemic communities as well as the implementation of university-community environmental partnerships.

Authors

• Hannah Cooke, University of Connecticut

• Rebecca A. Campbell-Montalvo, University of Connecticut

• Todd Campbell, University of Connecticut

• Byung-Yeol Park, University of Connecticut

• Chester Arnold, University of Connecticut

• John Volin, University of Maine

• Marisa Chrysochoou, University of Connecticut

• Peter Diplock, University of Connecticut - Avery Point