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Service learning has many documented benefits for students. The benefits to the communities are less clear. This study examines the unfolding of an environmental service-learning partnership from the perspective of one participating community liaison. We examine a new model of university-community engagement, where undergraduate students are paired with a local community to address environmental issues in courses that focus on adaptation and mitigation. We use actor-network theory (ANT) to explore the experiences of one community liaison, focusing specifically on factors that helped build and maintain the partnership and produced benefits for the community. Findings highlight the community liaison’s agency in negotiating partnership goals and determining the definition and treatment of environmental concerns. We conclude by identifying the insights an ANT perspective holds for service-learning and community-engagement research and practice. 

As a result of more recent events connected to the ongoing and lasting legacy of systemic racism in our society and the sparsity of research focused on both disciplinary teacher leadership (TL) and centering social justice and equity in teacher leadership literature reviews, this research investigated the ways in which science teacher leadership (STL) emerged in the context of a science department engaged in a year‐long professional learning experience aimed at teaching science for social justice. Drawing on a community of practice teacher leadership identity model as a theoretical framework and qualitative research methods, we sought to characterize STL that centered social justice. Written teacher reflections, semi‐structured interviews, and science lessons were collected from the six female science teachers and a female school administrator. The research revealed how STL supportive of teaching science for social justice was grounded in, among other characterizations of teacher leadership, competences like content and pedagogical knowledge, performances like inclusiveness and lesson design, and support from the structure of the year‐long professional learning, and engagement in a community of practice. This research provides insights into the complex characterization and emergence of STL. 

The environment, science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics fields (a collection of fields we call E-STEAM) continue to grow and remain economically and ecologically important. However, historically excluded groups remain underrepresented in science and technology professions, particularly in environmental and digital media fields. Consequently, building pathways for historically excluded students to enter economically viable and ecologically influential E-STEAM professions is critically important. These new pathways hold promise for increasing innovation within these fields and ensuring a multiplicity of representation as these fields are shaped and reshaped to attend to the plural interests of diverse communities. Consequently, this conceptual paper describes an eco-digital storytelling (EDS) approach to engaging historically excluded populations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This approach offers structured learning opportunities connected to learner interests and community needs with the aim of increasing E-STEAM identity and career interest of teens from groups historically excluded from E-STEAM fields. E-STEAM identity is a meaning one can attach to oneself or that can be ascribed externally by others as individuals interact and engage in E-STEAM fields in ways that foreground the environment. The EDS approach leverages community-based action, technology and digital media, and arts and storytelling as entry points for engaging learners. EDS is designed to increase teens’ content knowledge within multiple E-STEAM fields and to provide numerous technology-rich experiences in both application of geospatial technologies (i.e., GPS, interactive maps) and digital media creation (i.e., video, animation, ArcGIS StoryMaps) as a way to shape teens’ cultural learning pathways. Examples of rich digital media presentations developed to communicate the EDS approach and local environmental opportunities, challenges, and projects are provided that exemplify how both participation in and communication of environmental action can contribute to more promising and sustainable futures. 

Abstract Cotton (Gossypium hirsutumL.) is the key renewable fibre crop worldwide, yet its yield and fibre quality show high variability due to genotype-specific traits and complex interactions among cultivars, management practices and environmental factors. Modern breeding practices may limit future yield gains due to a narrow founding gene pool. Precision breeding and biotechnological approaches offer potential solutions, contingent on accurate cultivar-specific data. Here we address this need by generating high-quality reference genomes for three modern cotton cultivars (‘UGA230’, ‘UA48’ and ‘CSX8308’) and updating the ‘TM-1’ cotton genetic standard reference. Despite hypothesized genetic uniformity, considerable sequence and structural variation was observed among the four genomes, which overlap with ancient and ongoing genomic introgressions from ‘Pima’ cotton, gene regulatory mechanisms and phenotypic trait divergence. Differentially expressed genes across fibre development correlate with fibre production, potentially contributing to the distinctive fibre quality traits observed in modern cotton cultivars. These genomes and comparative analyses provide a valuable foundation for future genetic endeavours to enhance global cotton yield and sustainability.