Body
Image
The Climate Action Simulation and 10,000 Pounds Project: A Team Based, Interactive Curriculum With Near-Peer Mentoring to Drive Students' STEM/ ICT Career Interests
This project fosters STEM/ICT career knowledge through team-based, Integrated STEM learning experiences where high school students in urban and rural schools create climate solutions at global and local scales, supported by near-peer mentoring. After exploring sources and solutions to climate change, student teams play a “Climate Action Simulation” game, using a technology-rich digital platform and guides for a set of social roles. The game’s “engine” is an interactive global model, called “Energy Resource and Decision Support” or En-ROADS, showing how changes in energy, economic, and public policy systems affect emissions and climate outcomes. In the “10,000 Pounds Project,” student teams develop emissions-reducing projects to benefit their school or community. A near-peer mentor facilitates the experiences while being a relatable role model and champion, encouraging STEM/ ICT identity. Through the effort of three community-based non-profits working at the intersection of climate and equity and a statewide energy workforce initiative, the project aims to increase the interest in and access to STEM/ ICT career paths for underserved students and youth. Minnesota has a growing demand for the STEM-literate workforce needed for clean energy and sustainability-related STEM/ICT jobs. To help meet that demand, a new webpage tells motivating energy and green job stories and showcases training opportunities and career pathways.
Pillar 1: Innovative Use of Technologies in Learning and Teaching
Combining a scientifically rigorous computer model with an engaging, richly social roleplay, the project offers a promising approach for aligning analytic, social and affective learning pathways. It combines simulation of the energy-climate system with simulation of the social aspects of group decision-making through roleplay. Playing the roles across industry, government, and activism, students are empowered to make decisions and to influence others’ decisions. Their collective aim, over rounds of negotiation, is to cr
Pillar 2: Partnerships for Career and Workforce Preparation.
Prior research shows that using the En-ROADS model and simulation is positively associated with changes in students’ climate science knowledge, affective engagement, and desire to learn more, thus enhancing STEM career readiness and interests in students, including those underrepresented in STEM fields. With the 10,000 Pound Project, students use STEM and teamwork skills to design an authentic (serving a real purpose) project that benefits their community. We know that such learning aligns well with the higher-level thi
Pillar 3: Strategies for Equity in STEM Education
Research shows that high impact educational practices, such as the simulations and project-based learning in this project, attract, engage and retain underserved students. Also, when instructional content is personally relevant and provides meaningful experience, learning outcomes are enhanced. With climate change and justice front of mind for many students, particularly those underrepresented in STEM fields and for whom climate disparities may be personally relevant, the focus of this project aims to open green job pa
Discipline(s)
Environmental sciences
Target Gradespan(s)
High school (9-12)
Target Participant(s)
Youth / students
Project Setting(s)
Formal Education
Category
Developing and Testing Innovations (DTI)