ED53G-07
Restoration Science in New York Harbor: It takes a (large, diverse and engaged) village
Friday, 18 December 2015: 15:10
104 (Moscone South)
Robert Newton1, Lauren Birney2, Samuel Janis3, Meghan Groome4, Matthew Palmer1, Elisa Bone5, Judith M O'Neil6, Jonathan Hill2, William Dennison6, Peter Malinowski3, Lisa Kohne7, Michelle Molina7, Gaylen Moore8 and Nancy Woods9, (1)Columbia University of New York, Palisades, NY, United States, (2)Pace University New York, Education, New York, NY, United States, (3)New York Harbor School Foundation, New York, NY, United States, (4)New York Academy of Sciences, New York, NY, United States, (5)Ashore Consulting, Sidney, Australia, (6)University of Maryland Center (UMCES CBL) for Environmental Science Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, Solomons, MD, United States, (7)Smart Start ECS, Irvine, CA, United States, (8)Gaylen Moore Ass., New York, NY, United States, (9)New York City, Department of Education, New York, NY, United States
Abstract:
The Curriculum + Community Enterprise for Restoration Science (CCE-RS) facilitates partnerships between scientists and middle school educators on ecological restoration and environmental monitoring projects. The educational model is designed to wrap around the student, including classroom instruction, field science, after-school programs and engagement with the student’s community. Its pillars include: a teacher training fellowship at Pace University, student curriculum, a digital platform, afterschool and summer mentoring, and community exhibits. The digital platform includes a tablet app tailored to the project’s field protocols and linked to a database shared across schools and partnering institutions. Through the digital platform, data is integrated into a single citizen-science monitoring project, teachers share curriculum and best practices, and students link directly to their peers at other schools. Curriculum development has been collaborative between scientists, science education specialists, and secondary school teachers. The CCE-RS is rooted in project-based learning: the New York Harbor School has engaged high school students in environmental monitoring and oyster restoration in the Harbor for about the last decade. The science partners (U. of Maryland and Columbia) have been working with students and other citizen scientists in outdoor science over about the last decade. Local partners in outside-the-classroom education include the New York Academy of Sciences, The River Project, which will provide field education services, and Good Shepherd Services, which provides after-school programming in schools serving primarily poor families. Scientists on the project engage directly with teachers and informal educators in curriculum development and citizen-science outreach. We present the lessons learned from our first cohort of Fellows, the pedagogical model, and the digital platform, which is extensible to other ecological restoration settings.
