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1. Community-based participatory climate action

   https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2023.12  

   Restrepo-Mieth, Andrea ; Perry, Jocelyn ; Garnick, Jonah ; Weisberg, Michael ( January 2023 , Global Sustainability)

   Improving the flow of information between governments and local communities is paramount to achieving effective climate change mitigation and adaptation. We propose five pathways to deepen participation and improve community-based climate action. The pathways can be summarized as visualization, simulations to practice decision-making, participatory budgeting and planning, environmental civic service, and education and curriculum development. These pathways contribute to improving governance by consolidating in governments the practice of soliciting and incorporating community participation while simultaneously giving communities the tools and knowledge needed to become active contributors to climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.

   Community participation is considered a key component in the design of responses to climate change. Substantial engagement of local communities is required to ensure information flow between governments and communities, but also because local communities are the primary sites of adaptation action. However, frontline communities are often excluded from decision-making and implementation processes due to political choices or failures to identify ways to make participatory frameworks more inclusive. Climate action requires the active engagement of communities in making consequential decisions, or what we termdeepened participation. We propose five pathways to deepen participation: visualization, simulations to practice decision-making, participatory budgeting and planning, environmental civic service, and education and curriculum development. The five pathways identify strategies that can be incorporated into existing organizational and institutional frameworks or used to create new ones. Shortcomings related to each strategy are identified. Reflection by communities and governments is encouraged as they choose which participatory technique(s) to adopt.

   Climate action requires the active engagement of communities. Learn five pathways to get started deepening participation.

    

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2. Designing a Curriculum to Broaden Middle School Students' Ideas and Interest in Engineering

   Stevens, Shawn Y. ; Littenberg-Tobias, Joshua ; McKneally, Ranida ; Cayko, Ethan ( June 2023 , 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   Designing a Curriculum to Broaden Middle School Students’ Ideas and Interest in Engineering As the 21st century progresses, engineers will play critical roles in addressing complex societal problems such as climate change and nutrient pollution. Research has shown that more diverse teams lead to more creative and effective solutions (Smith-Doerr et al., 2017). However, while some progress has been made in increasing the number of women and people of color, 83% of employed engineers are male and 68% of engineers are white (NSF & NCSES, 2019). Traditional K–12 approaches to engineering often emphasize construction using a trial-and-error approach (ASEE, 2020). Although this approach may appeal to some students, it may alienate other students who then view engineering simply as “building things.” Designing engineering experiences that broaden students’ ideas about engineering, may help diversify the students entering the engineering pipeline. To this end, we developed Solving Community Problems with Engineering (SCoPE), an engineering curriculum that engages seventh-grade students in a three-week capstone project focusing on nutrient pollution in their local watershed. SCoPE engages students with the problem through local news articles about nutrient pollution and images of algae covered lakes, which then drives the investigation into the detrimental processes caused by excess nutrients entering bodies of water from sources such as fertilizer and wastewater. Students research the sources of nutrient pollution and potential solutions, and use simulations to investigate key variables and optimize the types of strategies for effectively decreasing and managing nutrient pollution to help develop their plans. Throughout the development process, we worked with a middle school STEM teacher to ensure the unit builds upon the science curriculum and the activities would be engaging and meaningful to students. The problem and location were chosen to illustrate that engineers can solve problems relevant to rural communities. Since people in rural locations tend to remain very connected to their communities throughout their lives, it is important to illustrate that engineering could be a relevant and viable career near home. The SCoPE curriculum was piloted with two teachers and 147 seventh grade students in a rural public school. Surveys and student drawings of engineers before and after implementation of the curriculum were used to characterize changes in students’ interest and beliefs about engineering. After completing the SCoPE curriculum, students’ ideas about engineers’ activities and the types of problems they solve were broadened. Students were 53% more likely to believe that engineers can protect the environment and 23% more likely to believe that they can identify problems in the community to solve (p < 0.001). When asked to draw an engineer, students were 1.3 times more likely to include nature/environment/agriculture (p < 0.01) and 3 times more likely to show engineers helping people in the community (p< 0.05) Additionally, while boys’ interest in science and engineering did not significantly change, girls’ interest in engineering and confidence in becoming an engineer significantly increased (Cohen’s D = 0.28, p<0.05). The SCoPE curriculum is available on PBS LearningMedia: https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/solving-community-problems-with-engineering/ This project was funded by NSF through the Division of Engineering Education and Centers, Research in the Formation of Engineers program #202076. References American Society for Engineering Education. (2020). Framework for P-12 Engineering Learning. Washington, DC. DOI: 10.18260/1-100-1153 National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. (2019). Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2019. Special Report NSF 17-310. Arlington, VA. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21321/. Smith-Doerr, L., Alegria, S., & Sacco, T. (2017). How Diversity Matters in the US Science and Engineering Workforce: A Critical Review Considering Integration in Teams, Fields, and Organizational Contexts, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 3, 139-153. 

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3. Scientific Cooperation: Supporting Circumpolar Permafrost Monitoring and Data Sharing

   https://doi.org/10.3390/land10060590  

   Bouffard, Troy J. ; Uryupova, Ekaterina ; Dodds, Klaus ; Romanovsky, Vladimir E. ; Bennett, Alec P. ; Streletskiy, Dmitry ( June 2021 , Land)

   null (Ed.)

   While the world continues to work toward an understanding and projections of climate change impacts, the Arctic increasingly becomes a critical component as a bellwether region. Scientific cooperation is a well-supported narrative and theme in general, but in reality, presents many challenges and counter-productive difficulties. Moreover, data sharing specifically represents one of the more critical cooperation requirements, as part of the “scientific method [which] allows for verification of results and extending research from prior results”. One of the important pieces of the climate change puzzle is permafrost. In general, observational data on permafrost characteristics are limited. Currently, most permafrost data remain fragmented and restricted to national authorities, including scientific institutes. The preponderance of permafrost data is not available openly—important datasets reside in various government or university labs, where they remain largely unknown or where access restrictions prevent effective use. Although highly authoritative, separate data efforts involving creation and management result in a very incomplete picture of the state of permafrost as well as what to possibly anticipate. While nations maintain excellent individual permafrost research programs, a lack of shared research—especially data—significantly reduces effectiveness of understanding permafrost overall. Different nations resource and employ various approaches to studying permafrost, including the growing complexity of scientific modeling. Some are more effective than others and some achieve different purposes than others. Whereas it is not possible for a nation to effectively conduct the variety of modeling and research needed to comprehensively understand impacts to permafrost, a global community can. In some ways, separate scientific communities are not necessarily concerned about sharing data—their work is secured. However, decision and policy makers, especially on the international stage, struggle to understand how best to anticipate and prepare for changes, and thus support for scientific recommendations during policy development. To date, there is a lack of research exploring the need to share circumpolar permafrost data. This article will explore the global data systems on permafrost, which remain sporadic, rarely updated, and with almost nothing about the subsea permafrost publicly available. The authors suggest that the global permafrost monitoring system should be real time (within technical and reasonable possibility), often updated and with open access to the data (general way of representing data required). Additionally, it will require robust co-ordination in terms of accessibility, funding, and protocols to avoid either duplication and/or information sharing. Following a brief background, this article will offer three supporting themes, (1) the current state of permafrost data, (2) rationale and methods to share data, and (3) implications for global and national interests. 

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4. Infrastructure Adaptation to Climate Change: Institutional Support in Rural Alaska

   Taylor, J ; Poleacovschi, C ; Perez, M. ( October 2020 , Engineering Project Organization Conference)

   Faust, K ; Kanjanabootra, S (Ed.)

   As climate change impacts intensify, communities in rural Alaska are undergoing and adapting to changes to infrastructure from increased permafrost thawing, flooding, and coastal erosion. Climate change adaptation, defined as a process, action, or outcome in a system to better adjust to actual or expected climate change impacts, is needed to address significant structural failures and safety concerns. Despite the recognition of the need for support from stakeholders and adaptation of infrastructure, the level of adaptation activity remains limited and inconsistent across regions and communities in rural Alaska. We address this need by identifying drivers and barriers of adaptation based on stakeholder perspectives (N=25). Stakeholders included people who work for government agencies, non-profits, engineering firms, or academic institutions in rural Alaska. Results show that strong community leadership and flexibility of funding conditions were drivers to adaptation of infrastructure. Further, results show that the high cost of technology and infrastructure and lack of access to and stipulations on funding were barriers to adaptation of infrastructure. These drivers and barriers emphasize the importance of adaptation processes that effectively accommodate the unique contexts of addressing impacts in rural Alaska. Results demonstrate the need for national adaptation funding and policy that encourages local decision-making power. Specifically, results outline the need for adaptation funding and policy that supports the collaboration of Alaska based institutions and rural Alaska communities in adaptation. 

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5. Contexts shaping misdemeanor system interventions among people with mental illnesses: qualitative findings from a multi-site system mapping exercise

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s40352-023-00219-8  

   Wood, Jennifer D. ; Watson, Amy C. ; Pope, Leah ; Warnock, Amanda ; Nelson, Veronica ; Gesser, Nili ; Zern, Adria ; Stagoff-Belfort, Aaron ; de Bibiana, Jason Tan ; Compton, Michael T. ( April 2023 , Health & Justice)

   People with mental illnesses are disproportionately entangled in the criminal legal system. Historically, this involvement has resulted from minor offending, often accompanied by misdemeanor charges. In recent years, policymakers have worked to reduce the footprint of the criminal legal system. This paper seeks to better understand how misdemeanor systems intervene in the lives of people with mental illnesses.

   System mapping exercises were conducted with misdemeanor system stakeholders from the jurisdictions of Atlanta, Chicago, Manhattan, and Philadelphia. Narrative detail on decision-making and case processing, both generally and in relation to specific types of behavior, including trespassing, retail theft/shoplifting, and simple assault, were coded and analyzed for thematic patterns. Based on the qualitative analysis, this paper offers a conceptual diagram of contexts shaping misdemeanor system interventions among people with mental illnesses.

   All four sites have been engaged in efforts to reduce the use of misdemeanor charges both generally and in relation to people with mental illnesses. Decision-makers across all sites experience contexts that shape how, when, and where they intervene, which are: (1) law and policy environments; (2) location of the behavior; (3) expectations of stakeholders; (4) knowledge of mental illnesses; and (5) access to community resources. Law and policy environments expand or constrain opportunities for diversion. The location of offending is relevant to who has a stake in the behavior, and what demands they have. Clinical, experiential, and system-level knowledge of mental illnesses inform a chain of decisions about what to do. The capacity to address mental health needs is contingent on access to social services, including housing.

   People making decisions along the criminal legal continuum are critical to illuminating the dynamic, inter-related contexts that facilitate and frustrate attempts to address defendants’ mental health needs while balancing considerations of public safety. Multi-sector, scenario-based or case study exercises could help identify concrete ways of improving each of the contexts that surround whole-of-system decisions.

    

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