Change Makers: Urban Youth Food Justice Ambassadors

变革者：城市青年食品正义大使

• 批准号: 1713460
• 负责人: George Barnett
• 金额: $ 203.23万
• 依托单位: Boston College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-09-01 至 2022-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1713460&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Change; Makers; Urban; Youth; Food

As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This Change Makers project will establish Food Justice Ambassador corps across three cities in Massachusetts where youth will install, manage and learn the science and technology underlying hydroponics. The project takes a near-peer mentoring approach that empowers high school youth to take the lead in improving ethnic minority and low-income residents' access to healthy produce and to help educate middle school youth regarding the value of fresh produce in one's diet by learning the science of hydroponics. Youth will create story maps to visualize food accessibility in their communities. High school youth will work with their communities to establish hydroponic farms in middle school after-school settings. The food that is grown will be provided to the community through farmers' markets. Youth will share their work with a larger community of urban farmers at the Massachusetts Urban Farming Conference.This project seeks to understand the contribution on youth development by the model's three components: (1) STEM learning embedded in a social justice framework, (2) near-peer mentoring, and (3) youth purpose and career development. This will enable researchers to better understand how the project enables youth to learn STEM skills; apply them to a real life problem; learn the relevance of STEM skills for addressing personal, career aspiration, and social justice issues; develop a sense of purpose and aspirations related to STEM fields; and mentor other youth through the same process. The project will use a mixed-method, multi-site longitudinal study utilizing quantitative surveys, structural equation modeling, and qualitative interviews to study the intersections of the components of the project. As such, the study will address three key questions: 1) How do youth and mentors perceive and experience their roles as participants in the pedagogy? 2) What is the impact of the intervention on youth' sense of purpose, identity, career adaptability, work volition, critical consciousness, school engagement, STEM interests, and STEM intentionality? 3) What is the contribution of relational/mentoring and psychosocial/career adaptability aspects of the youths' contexts on their capacity to benefit from this program and to develop and sustain purpose and engagement in school and STEM? Most urban youth (and adults) have little knowledge of where their food comes from and have limited opportunities to learn how to grow produce as well as develop related skills that can lead to a career in a STEM field. This is particularly disconcerting as 55% of African Americans live inside central cities (90% in metropolitan areas) and over half of all Latino/as live in central cities (United States Census Bureau, 2011). This project entails the recruitment of low-income youth from populations underrepresented in science into a program where social justice concerns (food justice, food security) are illuminated, analyzed, and acted upon through the development of STEM knowledge and skills. Specifically, this project recognizes the potential for urban youth to become deeply knowledgeable citizens who can mobilize their STEM knowledge and skills to resolve social injustices such as food deserts. If successful, this project will provide a model that should be transferable to similar contexts to help broaden participation in STEM.

作为增强非正式环境中学习的整体战略的一部分，前进的非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划旨在推进对非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。该变革制造商项目将在马萨诸塞州的三个城市建立粮食正义大使团，年轻人将在那里安装，管理和学习水培法基础的科学技术。该项目采用了一种近乎共同的指导方法，使高中青年有能力领导改善少数民族和低收入居民获得健康农产品的机会，并通过学习水培法科学来帮助教育中学青年关于新鲜农产品在饮食中的价值。年轻人将创建故事地图，以可视化社区中的食品可及性。高中青年将与社区合作，在中学的课后环境中建立水培农场。种植的食物将通过农民市场提供给社区。年轻人将在马萨诸塞州城市农业会议上与更大的城市农民社区分享他们的工作。该项目旨在了解该模型的三个组成部分对青年发展的贡献：（1）STEM学习嵌入了社会正义框架中，（2）近亲指导，以及（3）青年目标和职业发展。这将使研究人员能够更好地了解该项目如何使青年学习STEM技能。将它们应用于现实生活中的问题；了解解决个人，职业志向和社会正义问题的STEM技能的相关性；发展与STEM领域有关的目标感和愿望；并通过同一过程指导其他年轻人。该项目将使用定量调查，结构方程建模和定性访谈的混合方法，多站点的纵向研究来研究项目组成部分的相互作用。因此，该研究将解决三个关键问题：1）青年和导师如何看待并体验他们作为教学法参与者的角色？ 2）干预对青年的目标，身份，职业适应能力，工作意愿，批判意识，学校参与，STEM兴趣和STEM意图的影响是什么？ 3）年轻人背景的关系/指导和社会心理/职业适应性方面的贡献是什么，他们从该计划中受益，发展和维持在学校和STEM中的目的和参与的能力是什么？大多数城市青年（和成年人）对食物的来源不了解，并且有限的机会学习如何发展农产品以及发展相关技能，从而可以导致STEM领域的职业。这尤其令人不安，因为有55％的非洲裔美国人居住在中央城市内（大都市地区90％）和全部拉丁美洲人的一半以上/居住在中部城市（美国人口普查局，2011年）。该项目需要从科学人群中招募低收入年轻人进入一项计划，以通过开发STEM知识和技能来照亮，分析食品正义，粮食安全，分析和采取行动。具体而言，该项目认识到城市青年成为深刻知识渊博的公民的潜力，他们可以动员他们的STEM知识和技能来解决诸如食品沙漠之类的社会不公正现象。如果成功的话，该项目将提供一个应该转移到类似环境的模型，以帮助扩大参与STEM的参与。

项目成果

Changemakers: Influences on Engagement in STEM Curricula Among Underrepresented Youth

变革者：对代表性不足的年轻人参与 STEM 课程的影响

• DOI: 10.12973/ejper.5.2.103
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: European Journal of Psychology and Educational Research
• 作者: Konowitz, Lily;Lund*, Terese;Lincoln, Brenna;Reed, Madeline;Liang, Belle;Barnett, Mike;Blustein, David
• 通讯作者: Blustein, David