Sense of Place and Quality of Life: Water Restoration in Four Michigan Towns

This project is examining four communities in Michigan that have invested in projects that enhanced, rehabilitated, or remediated a water ecosystem to protect public health, improve recreation, and/or bolster commerce and economic development opportunities. Four phases of data collection and associated analysis are proposed at each site: semi-structured interviews, focus groups, a community-wide forum, and an online survey; the goal is to evaluate the community characteristics most likely to be associated with investment in and successful implementation of water resource project, develop a practical definition of “community vibrancy,” and create recommendations for generally transferable metrics describing the impact of water resource projects on vibrancy. My specific role will be to conduct a qualitative analysis of focus group and interview data with a focus on metrics related to sense of place. My intention is to arrive at a distinction between sense of place, community resilience, and quality of life variables to characterize the ways people connect to landscapes for economic, social, and environmental wellbeing.

Experiential Food System Learning, Participatory Virtues, and STEM Identity

With colleagues in the MSU Residential Initiative for the Study of the Environment (RISE), I am studying student participation in farm system experiential learning activities on STEM identity and environmental citizenship. This research brings several higher education high impact learning practices (HIPs) (Kuh, 2008) together: learning communities, experiential learning, and freshman seminars. As the project grows we intend to develop a community engagement component to study its impact on student learning, identity development, participatory virtues, and retention in STEM-related majors, as well.

Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) and STEM Identity

With graduate student Alissa Rickborn (OSU), I am analyzing 8 years of pre- and post-data from the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest (HJA) REU program to understand learning and metrics of STEM identity, or sense of belonging in communities of STEM, which are tied to retention, efficacy, and emotional well-being. Alissa and I are also collecting new data specifically on STEM identity with the participants in the HJA REU program and the Hatfield Marine Science REU program in summer 2017, with the intention of developing reflective interventions summer 2018 to further facilitate the development of STEM identity, as well as affective learning variables and meta-learning capacity.

Urban Agriculture, Local Governance, and Ecological Citizenship

This project will describe the reciprocal interactions between environmental governance and urban and peri-urban agriculture in the greater Lansing area in order to build robust institutions and a healthy environment. Specifically, we will explore feedback relationships between: a) Michigan and Lansing agriculture and urban agriculture policy, b) state and local institutions related to urban agriculture, c) local organizations promoting the growth and maintenance of urban agriculture activities, d) the ways different institutions influence decision making processes at the urban farm level, and e) the role of community participation in building more robust institutions. Our goal with this preliminary research is to create a methodological framework we might apply in other urban contexts (e.g. across the US, Colombia, Mexico, Peru) and in the development of a large-scale research grant to further study urban agriculture related to governance, socio- ecological systems, ecological citizenship, and resilience in these areas 

Contemplative Practice, Resilience, and Sustainability Learning

In spring 2017 I piloted a 5-minute pause in my Introduction to Community Sustainability class to understand if and how a short contemplative practice might impact student learning and well-being. The results were impactful and this is ongoing research. With colleagues I have also developed a 2-credit upper-level Contemplative Practice and Resilience course for students in the Residential Initiative for Study of the Environment (RISE) program at MSU. This course explores what it means to develop a practice and how regular contemplative practice might be impactful as sustainability leaders and practitioners. We are interested in how a practice can catalyze individual resilience in ways that can inform the development of resilient communities, who might then be able to work on behalf of ecological resilience. In this context, we will study the impact of contemplative practice on students’ own resilience and capacity for environmental leadership by collecting data on psychological wellbeing and change agency.

Assessing "Systems Thinking" Skills and Learning in Interdisciplinary STEM Courses

This is a collaborative project involving investigators from Michigan State University (Award DUE-1711260), the American Museum of Natural History (Award DUE-1711411), and Rutgers University-New Brunswick (Award DUE-1712034). In this project, the investigators will test a method for teaching, assessing, and improving systems thinking skills in STEM classrooms using cognitive mapping software called Mental Modeler (http://www.mentalmodeler.org/), which allows students to represent their understanding of a problem through easy-to-use system-modeling tools and to rearrange components of the problem to analyze scenarios and revise their understanding. This approach will be tested in several environmental science, environmental studies, and sustainability-related courses focusing on problems related to food systems. 

The New Food Ethics

This is a Mellon-sponsored interdisciplinary collaborative project exploring engaged food ethics and practice. We are currently working in the areas of food waste, food insecurity, and ethical eating by applying philosophical tools and social science practice to real world problem-solving with communities in the Midwestern US. I directed data collection on public dialogues around food waste at the World African Festival in Detroit, MI in August, 2017; this work will contribute to community engaged food systems scholarship.

Values and Responsibility in Interdisciplinary Environmental Science: A Dialogue-Based Framework for Ethics Education

This module-based ethics education was developed for use in graduate-level environmental science courses to provide students with a relevant values education to enable them to participate in dialogue and decision-making related to the kinds of responsibility environmental scientists might have for the ways their work is interpreted and implemented by non-scientists in the address of environmental problems, e.g. risk, expertise, non-human impacts, and policy constraints. NSF STS. The program was piloted as an element of the Tool Box Project, an NSF-supported method of dialogue designed to enhance cross-disciplinary communication and problem-solving. My role was to refine, revise, and package the curriculum materials that grew out of the pilot research. Materials are now publicly available and we are developing and evaluating assessment materials to understand learning and engagement related to their use.

Discovery Trail Interpretation: Experiential Learning, Place Relationships, and Moral Development 

With colleagues at Oregon State University, I have designed an interpretive learning trail and field trip support framework (pre-trip curriculum suggestions, field trip activities, and post-trip integration suggestions) for the Discovery Trail in the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest (HJA) that draws on both long-term scientific and humanistic inquiry at the site. Research on ecological disturbance, resource management, and hydrology is woven with creative writing from the Ecological Reflections program and paired with personal reflection and creative inquiry. The trail is currently wired for intranet wifi access; content and assessment will be delivered by digital media (e.g., iPads). Our primary objective is to engage middle and high school students in learning about place and conservation science, while guiding them to reflect upon their own relationships with place and personal responsibility for stewardship behavior. We are currently collecting student learning and sense of place data on the trail.

Arts and Humanities Inquiry in the Long-Term Ecological Research Network

I am researching arts, humanities, and environmental science collaborations/interactions across the Long-Term Ecological Research Network. I am interested in the role place-based creative work might play in developing connections to and understanding of the natural world, with the potential for empathy between: artists, humanists, and scientists; participants and science or scientists; and participants and the natural world. We have surveyed PIs across the network, interviewed a selection of PIs and outreach coordinators, and have been collecting audience participation surveys at an ongoing LTER arts, humanities, environmental science event in Fairbanks, AK (Bonanaza Creek LTER). 

Pastured Pigs, Food System Learning, and Ethical Eating

This is a long-running collaboration (animal science, agriculture education, environmental ethics, philosophy, sustainability, farmer) raising pasture-raised pigs as part of an integrated organic crop management system, researching the role of human-animal relationships in the development of wise food ethics, fostering cross-discipline and cross-paradigm dialogue about sustainability, and developing/assessing interdisciplinary curriculum on sustainable food systems. I am particularly interested in affective learning, relationships across the food system, and the development of participatory virtues through the development of community and food system practices in the field.

Sustainability Education

In graduate school I crafted and refined interdisciplinary (ecology, social justice, economics, community engagement, aesthetics, personal development, critical thinking) competencies and rubrics for a sustainability minor at Michigan State University. I developed fluency in competency-based approaches to learner-centered education. This project now focuses on learning in the sustainability classroom. I am exploring the impact of experiential learning - field trips in the campus waste stream and a semester-long behavior change project for introductory sustainability students - on student engagement with sustainability learning and change agency. I am also researching STEM identity and change agency as a result of experiential learning in the food system for students in the introductory seminar for a sustainability minor, as well as the felt impacts of 5-minute pauses in the sustainability classroom for learner wellbeing and learning preparedness.

past research projects and collaborations

Oregon Forests Student and Teacher Summit 

The goal of the Oregon Forests High School Student Summit is to provide an opportunity for college-bound high school students to increase their understanding about forests and explore careers in forestry and natural resources. I conducted an evaluation of the event to assess diversity and students’ sense of belonging both at OSU and in forestry-related majors and careers focused on: 1) student curiosity and engagement with forest-related content, 2) student perceptions about forest-related careers, and 3) student and teacher satisfaction with the event.

Field Philosophy Learning and Moral Development

This project weaves place-based ecology with field-based environmental ethics curriculum to understand if and how student care for place and community can shift as a result of experiential wilderness learning. I use social science methods to understand ethical and metaphysical development. This began as an ongoing study of an interdisciplinary field course in Isle Royale National Park, but has also grown to include experiential food ethics curriculum, as well.

Participatory Virtues and Organic Farm Experiential Learning

This was a collaborative project (environmental and educational philosophy, sustainability ethics, environmental education, farming, agriculture education) on the pedagogy and practice of field learning in the sustainable food system to better understand and implement the development of participatory virtues and environmental citizenship.

Competency-Based Assessment of Critical Thinking for Sustainability Through Experiential Education Across the Curriculum

This project was a large-scale analysis of student data across 5 sites (study abroad, study away, campus farm, on-campus class with field trips, and campus sustainability staff training) to understand critical thinking about sustainability across disciplines, program types, and content. I taught and assessed one of the five sites, ISRO field philosophy.