ICBOs New Project Showcased at PI Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Bobby Wilson ready to share our wonderful workbooks!

Bobby Wilson and Karen Purcell showcased our new NOISE project's poster during this year's Principal Investigator meeting in Washington, D.C.

This event, organized by the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) is for PI's of projects supported by the NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program and others who take an active interest in broad strategic issues that cut across the informal science education field.

These PI Meetings offer an opportunity to discuss trends and issues in the field and we are excited that this time one of our community researchers who is also a Co-PI attended.

Bobby and Karen also presented at at the NSF PI Panel on Public Participation in Scientific Research/Citizen Science as a Force for Change along with two other researchers committed to community led participatory research.

Monica Ramirez-Andreotta, whose project is focused on building capacity in underserved communities and informing the safe and sustainable production of food sources, and Lucy Robinson who is reaching out to community-based orgs in London to work on bioblitzes as part of their Science Learning + project.

The panel PPSR/ “Citizen science” presents opportunities for authentic science engagement and science learning. Employing this approach in a more than cursory way raises fundamental questions about who determines what science is being done and for what purpose. How can addressing these questions, and engaging communities at the outset, create opportunities for new forms of science learning, and new models of scientific research?

What a nice way to start this year! Keeping it up with the ICBOs.

Bobby and Karen on a selfie ride.

Karen, Bobby and Tina proudly pose in front of our original poster.

Reflection from Our first presentation in San Diego

We'd like to share a look back at when we (the ICBOs), first presented our research results as a group panel in our annual meeting in San Diego on March 22, 2018. The meeting took place at the WorldBeat Center and included almost all the ICBOs (including our dear friend Pepe Marcos-Iga). It was our first presentation of our final results as an entire group.

Ever since, it's been an exciting and non-stop journey. Our collective perspectives have traveled throughout many conferences since then!

Here we share a few of our slides from our presentation on March 22, 2018.

We also received lots of feedback on the workbook for STEM-serving institutions. This great resource is now revised and it has been well received wherever we go. We're still requesting feedback on the workbook and revising the content.

 

 

 

  

The "Dear Researchers: Some Unsolicited Advice from the Community" workshop presented at Consmark 2018!

Bobby Wilson, John Annoni, Karen Purcell and Marilú López Fretts presented the workshop "Dear Researchers: Some Unsolicited Advice from the Community" at the Conservation Marketing & Engagement Conference (Consmark) in Arlington, Virginia on October 27, 2018.

 

Community researcher John Annoni, of Camp Compass Academy,
dialogs with workshop participants.

 

Karen and Marilu check the technical aspects before the workshop.

 

Community researcher Bobby Wilson, of Metro Atlanta Urban Farm,
takes on the research results during the workshop.

Workshop participants discuss the activities based on the ICBO workbook.

 

 

Karen and John discuss details about the workshop at George Mason University's Founder's Hall.

Bobby and Karen review notes before the workshop.

Our Latest Presentation at the ASTC Annual Conference

The ICBOs presented at the ASTC annual conference on September 30 in Hartford, Connecticut. Bobby Wilson, Karen Kitchen, and Marilú López Fretts engaged in deep conversations during the poster presentation. Our newest ICBO poster features original art and reflects the evolution of the research framework.

Later that afternoon, they participated in a group discussion on the two strands of research during the session Examining Contextual Factors of Partnerships to Improve Cultural Diversity in Informal STEM Programming.

Bobby and Karen shared some of the ICBO results - mainly focused around ACCESS and Co-creation.

At the end of the session, the ICBOs piloted our newest version of the Informal Science Institution workbook filled with quotes from our research, artwork, and reflective questions. Make sure you get your copy. A pdf version of the ISE workbook is available for download here!

 

Finalizing our Community Framework

We continue to analyze our data and dig more and more deeply into our results.  As we have done so, we have discovered that our Community Framework continues to evolve and grow as we further understand our findings.

In the latest iteration of our Community Framework we find the same themes: Power and Privilege, Trust and Transparency, Realities and Relevance, and Commitment and Collaboration. But, we've found that Power and Privilege and Realties and Relevance represent challenges while Trust and Transparency and Commitment and Collaboration represent tools.

We've found that to represent the interplay among all the themes and the relationship between the tools and challenges, we needed to: 

1) Ensure that all the themes were clearly connecting with all the other themes -- thus all the colors  in the framework touch. 

2) Power and Privilege, represented in the blue is the category that most influences collaborations and all the other categories. It is the foundation of equitable collaborations and thus, appears on the outer edge as the base of the framework (looking at it from above). Realities and Relevance, represented in yellow indicate that even when following best practices and exhibiting the best of intentions, these break down when implementing programming and these challenges may prevent successful collaborations.

3) Trust and Transparency and Commitment and Collaboration depicted as two figures, one brown and and one cream, are connecting with each other, perhaps hugging, perhaps dancing. These are tools utilized to overcome the challenges. 

It is important to see the tools in the context of the power dynamics and the realities of the collaboration!

We can't promise that our Community Framework won't continue to evolve, because it is a living, breathing framework that changes with our communities and adapts to our collective understanding of our work.

Our framework keeps evolving

When we started our journey as community researchers, the framework that we developed contained four main themes for creating long-standing partnerships and meaningful collaborations: Trust and Transparency; Power and Privilege; Realities and Relevance; and Commitment and Collaboration.

Originally, we believed that each one was distinct.

Below is the original framework:

Today, as our framework keeps evolving and becoming stronger, we understand that all of the themes are interconnected and all must be considered when developing and achieving more equitable long-standing partnerships and meaningful collaborations. The new image includes many of the recommendations that have emerged from our research.

Here is the new framework as it continues to evolve:

Our next stop is Atlanta, GA for the ACGA Conference

If you work within a community-based organization or with a large informal education institution and you are interested in “Building Meaningful Collaborations” this workshop is for you!

Join us at the American Community Gardening Association Bi-Annual Conference in College Park, Georgia from September 13-16, 2018.

Our pre-conference workshop will be held on September 13 from noon to 4:00 pm at Georgia International Convention Center.

Through humor, the arts, and storytelling we will explore the role of partnerships in the implementation of equitable environmental education projects in underserved communities.

Based on participatory research by communities historically excluded from the sciences, this workshop will uncover barriers and opportunities for achieving real impact in practice. 

Presenters: Bobby Wilson of Metro Atlanta Urban Farm, and fellow community researchers leading this work with The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Acknowledging History

Presenting at the Outdoor Mentoring Alliance Summit

John Annoni, CEO of Camp Compass and one of the Power 30 ICBOs, presents at the National Outdoor Mentoring Alliance Summit last June in Nebraska. Check out John’s amazing work with youth at http://www.campcompass.org/

Presenting at the American Community Gardening Association

Karen, Bobby and Marilú presented at the American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) last July in Connecticut. We had a great group of people with good questions and lots of interest in the research. Equity, diversity and inclusion in community gardening were themes of interest in this great conference.

ICBO Research presentation at ACGA Conference

Karen Purcell of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Bobby Wilson of Metro Atlanta Urban Farm shared preliminary results of the ICBO (Independent Community-based Organizations) research. The ICBO research explores issues that affect collaborations between community-based organizations and informal science institutions.