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1. Measuring Systemic Educational Wellness using the Eco-STEM Educational Ecosystem Health Survey

   Bowen, C.; Thompson, L.; Menezes, G. (August 2022, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN)

   This work-in-progress research paper introduces the Educational Ecosystem Health Survey (EEHS), an educational survey instrument designed by the Eco-STEM team at California State University, Los Angeles, a federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution. The Eco-STEM project applies a framework of Community Cultural Wealth and explores the metaphor of a healthy ecosystem to envision systemic change that responds to the needs and values the assets of diverse actors, who learn together for both their individual and collective good, within the educational “ecosystem.” As part of the project, the Eco-STEM team has developed the EEHS survey instrument to measure the “health” of the educational ecosystem. The results will provide valuable insight into the perceptions and experiences of students from socially and structurally oppressed groups. The Eco-STEM EEHS is comprised of constructs from several survey instruments that have already undergone statistical validation within educational contexts, many of them within higher education. The items peruse issues of social climate, belonging, thriving and wellbeing, interest, mindfulness, stress, and perceptions of the future. Given the Community Cultural Wealth framework and the fact that two-thirds of the student body at California State University, Los Angeles identifies as Hispanic, the EEHS is offered in both Spanish and English. Students are asked to provide a multitude of institutionally relevant demographic information, such that results may be disaggregated along many categories. The EEHS is also administered to faculty, staff, and administration / management in addition to students. By including these essential actors in the analysis of the state of the educational ecosystem, we intend to also measure perceptions of experience serving the STEM educational community, rather than solely receiving it. We will pilot the EEHS during the Spring 2022 semester. Over the next four years of the Eco- STEM project, semesterly administrations will quantify the progress of the project’s initiatives to implement effective systemic change. Our analyses will investigate the perspectives of those with oppressed social identities – individuals who actually hold majority representation within the unique demographic composition of California State University, Los Angeles. The results will offer critically important feedback to Hispanic-Serving Institutions and all institutions who strive to serve students from communities who have been left behind and even exploited by the existing systems and structures of higher education. Keywords: Educational Ecosystems, Community Cultural Wealth, Surveys 

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2. Extrahypothalamic oxytocin neurons drive stress-induced social vigilance and avoidance

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2011890117  

   Duque-Wilckens, Natalia; Torres, Lisette Y.; Yokoyama, Sae; Minie, Vanessa A.; Tran, Amy M.; Petkova, Stela P.; Hao, Rebecca; Ramos-Maciel, Stephanie; Rios, Roberto A.; Jackson, Kenneth; et al (October 2020, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   null (Ed.)

   Oxytocin increases the salience of both positive and negative social contexts and it is thought that these diverse actions on behavior are mediated in part through circuit-specific action. This hypothesis is based primarily on manipulations of oxytocin receptor function, leaving open the question of whether different populations of oxytocin neurons mediate different effects on behavior. Here we inhibited oxytocin synthesis in a stress-sensitive population of oxytocin neurons specifically within the medioventral bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNSTmv). Oxytocin knockdown prevented social stress-induced increases in social vigilance and decreases in social approach. Viral tracing of BNSTmv oxytocin neurons revealed fibers in regions controlling defensive behaviors, including lateral hypothalamus, anterior hypothalamus, and anteromedial BNST (BNSTam). Oxytocin infusion into BNSTam in stress naïve mice increased social vigilance and reduced social approach. These results show that a population of extrahypothalamic oxytocin neurons plays a key role in controlling stress-induced social anxiety behaviors. 

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3. Mapping and modeling the impact of climate change on recreational ecosystem services using machine learning and big data

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac65a3  

   Manley, Kyle; Egoh, Benis N (April 2022, Environmental Research Letters)

   Abstract The use of recreational ecosystem services is highly dependent on the surrounding environmental and climate conditions. Due to this dependency, future recreational opportunities provided by nature are at risk from climate change. To understand how climate change will impact recreation we need to understand current recreational patterns, but traditional data is limited and low resolution. Fortunately, social media data presents an opportunity to overcome those data limitations and machine learning offers a tool to effectively use that big data. We use data from the social media site Flickr as a proxy for recreational visitation and random forest to model the relationships between social, environmental, and climate factors and recreation for the peak season (summer) in California. We then use the model to project how non-urban recreation will change as the climate changes. Our model shows that current patterns are exacerbated in the future under climate change, with currently popular summer recreation areas becoming more suitable and unpopular summer recreation areas becoming less suitable for recreation. Our model results have land management implications as recreation regions that see high visitation consequently experience impacts to surrounding ecosystems, ecosystem services, and infrastructure. This information can be used to include climate change impacts into land management plans to more effectively provide sustainable nature recreation opportunities for current and future generations. Furthermore, our study demonstrates that crowdsourced data and machine learning offer opportunities to better integrate socio-ecological systems into climate impacts research and more holistically understand climate change impacts to human well-being. 

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4. Eco-STEM: Transforming STEM Education using an Assetbased Ecosystem Model

   Menezes, G.; Bowen, C.; Dong, J.; Thompson, L.; Warter-Perez, N.; Heubach, S.; Galvan, D.; Mijares, J.; Schiorring, E.; Allen, E. (January 2022, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   A 2019 report from the National Academies on Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) concluded that MSIs need to change their culture to successfully serve students with marginalized racial and/or ethnic identities. The report recommends institutional responsiveness to meet students “where they are,” metaphorically, creating supportive campus environments and providing tailored academic and social support structures. In recent years, the faculty, staff, and administrators at California State University, Los Angeles have made significant efforts to enhance student success through multiple initiatives including a summer bridge program, first-year in engineering program, etc. However, it has become clear that more profound changes are needed to create a culture that meets students “where they are.” In 2020, we were awarded NSF support for Eco-STEM, an initiative designed to change a system that demands "college-ready" students into one that is "student-ready." Aimed at shifting the deficit mindset prevailing in engineering education, the Eco-STEM project embraces an asset-based ecosystem model that thinks of education as cultivation, and ideas as seeds we are planting, rather than a system of standards and quality checks. This significant paradigm and culture transformation is accomplished through: 1) The Eco-STEM Faculty Fellows’ Community of Practice (CoP), which employs critically reflective dialogue[ ][ ] to enhance the learning environment using asset-based learner-centered instructional approaches; 2) A Leadership CoP with department chairs and program directors that guides cultural change at the department/program level; 3) A Facilitators’ CoP that prepares facilitators to lead, sustain, update, and expand the Faculty and Leadership CoPs; 4) Reform of the teaching evaluation system to sustain the cultural changes. This paper presents the progress and preliminary findings of the Eco-STEM project. During the first project year, the project team formulated the curriculum for the Faculty CoP with a focus on inclusive pedagogy, community cultural wealth, and community building, developed a classroom peer observation tool to provide formative data for teaching reflection, and designed research inquiry tools. The latter investigates the following research questions: 1) To what extent do the Eco-STEM CoPs effectively shift the mental models of participants from a factory-like model to an ecosystem model of education? 2) To what extent does this shift support an emphasis on the assets of our students, faculty, and staff members and, in turn, allow for enhanced motivation, excellence and success? 3) To what extent do new faculty assessment tools designed to provide feedback that reflects ecosystem-centric principles and values allow for individuals within the system to thrive? In Fall 2021, the first cohort of Eco-STEM Faculty Fellows were recruited, and rich conversations and in-depth reflections in our CoP meetings indicated Fellows’ positive responses to both the CoP curriculum and facilitation practices. This paper offers a work-in-progress introduction to the Eco-STEM project, including the Faculty CoP, the classroom peer observation tool, and the proposed research instruments. We hope this work will cultivate broader conversations within the engineering education research community about cultural change in engineering education and methods towards its implementation. 

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5. The Importance of Eco-evolutionary Potential in the Anthropocene

   https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biab010  

   Wood, Zachary T; Palkovacs, Eric P; Olsen, Brian J; Kinnison, Michael T (March 2021, BioScience)

   Abstract Humans are dominant global drivers of ecological and evolutionary change, rearranging ecosystems and natural selection. In the present article, we show increasing evidence that human activity also plays a disproportionate role in shaping the eco-evolutionary potential of systems—the likelihood of ecological change generating evolutionary change and vice versa. We suggest that the net outcome of human influences on trait change, ecology, and the feedback loops that link them will often (but not always) be to increase eco-evolutionary potential, with important consequences for stability and resilience of populations, communities, and ecosystems. We also integrate existing ecological and evolutionary metrics to predict and manage the eco-evolutionary dynamics of human-affected systems. To support this framework, we use a simple eco–evo feedback model to show that factors affecting eco-evolutionary potential are major determinants of eco-evolutionary dynamics. Our framework suggests that proper management of anthropogenic effects requires a science of human effects on eco-evolutionary potential. 

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