Project Profile

As young people experience challenging climate events and become aware of their systemic nature, they may feel powerless to shape the future and uncertain about STEM-based solutions. To address these challenges, this project focuses on the potential of place-based learning, field science, and digital storytelling to nurture diverse middle school youths’ environmental agency, STEM career knowledge, and STEM identities. The project includes a series of summer camps and school-year Saturday Academies to investigate the history, ecology, and restoration of a local watershed where youths’ schools are located. The watershed has unique biodiversity and is increasingly impacted by negative climate events in a city experiencing rapid population growth. Youth will work alongside STEM professionals, college student mentors, and community leaders to engage in environmental science fieldwork and restoration of the watershed. Youth will create stories about the land, water, people, and history of the watershed using podcasts, augmented reality (AR), and digital zines, with mentorship from professional experts in each of these media. Digital storytelling is a way for youth to recapture a sense of agency amidst considerable climate anxiety as the stories’ digital and mobile nature have the potential to reach diverse audiences and encourage scientific, affective, sociocultural, and historical knowledge of the watershed. The project team includes an array of community stakeholders who live near, study, restore, and advocate for the watershed. This project aims to develop and involve the next generation of STEM-knowledgeable community stakeholders. This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.

In this project, youth are positioned as creators rather than consumers of media. The project will result in design principles for the pairing of digital technologies and place-based learning for settings that nurture youths’ STEM knowledge, agency, identities, and well-being. A primary contribution to the advancement of knowledge will be a grounded theory of identity play, which includes: 1) key indicators of identity play; 2) relationships among place-based learning, digital storytelling, and identity play; and 3) unique affordances of digital storytelling in encouraging identity play. These contributions will be achieved through constant comparative analysis of multiple sources of data including pre/post nature walk recordings, post interviews, observations of key activities. 60 middle school youth will be direct participants of this study. Identity play is a construct that highlights the agency within identity development and provides a new way of conceptualizing growth. Rather than viewing growth solely as becoming more scientific or movement towards STEM, identity play is expansive so that growth may be non-linear and networked. Identity play may involve things like trying out, finding a better alternative, stretching, and combining previously disconnected interests. The practical implications of a grounded theory of identity play include designing for multiple STEM entry points and pathways, recognizing that youths’ decisions not to pursue certain pathways may be productive, and explaining the impacts of out-of-school STEM experiences on diverse youths’ career choices.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.