Fostering Civic Engagement through Science Learning Partnerships
In the spirit of SENCER, the Big Sky Airshed Model empowers young students to identify environmental problems in their community and then gives them the scientific knowledge and support to explore them using the latest in analytic technology.
A group of UM scientists and staff recently returned from the 2005 SENCER Summer Institute held at Santa Clara University from August 5-9. SENCER stands for Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities and is a national dissemination project launched by the National Science Foundation five years ago to promote creativity, higher level thinking, and community problem-solving into university-based science courses.
Tony Ward, CEHS assistant professor of atmospheric chemistry and Diana Vanek, CEHS Outreach Coordinator joined team members Earle Adams, Chemistry; Bill Granath, Biological Sciences; Steve Gaskill, Human & Health Performance. With assistance from UM Provost Lois Muir, SENCER alumni Garon Smith assembled the team to design a “SENCER-ized” multi-disciplinary approach to teaching about air quality issues in Western Montana. Their focus was to look at ways of expanding the Big Sky Airshed model currently being used by the UM team leading environmental chemistry studies in local high schools. This successful program is being used at Big Sky, Hellgate, and Sentinel high schools in Missoula as well as Corvallis High School in the Bitterrroot Valley. Students on the Flathead Reservation are also participating in the program through a partnership with the Environmental Sciences Department at Salish-Kootenai College.
SENCER embodies a transformation in science learning from traditional classroom teaching into a more powerful initiative for getting students to explore issues important in their community. A successful SENCER project combines original research across several disciplines on real-world problems, building advocacy skills to inform public policy. The National Science Foundation originally conceived the program as an experiment primarily serving science non-majors in order to make them more effective and active citizens. The 2005 SENCER Summer Institute expanded its scope into the international scientific community by featuring participants with projects of global significance.
The UM team has adopted SENCER strategies to train high school chemistry and provide an effective bridge to higher education and potentially to careers in science. In the Big Sky model, high school students have taken the reins by performing research on air quality, a topic highly relevant in western Montana, and they have acquired an active role and clear voice to inform the public and policymakers about their findings.
The Big Sky Airshed Model is multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional and multi-linear in its strategies and partnerships for enhancing science learning. Young students learn to apply science to their everyday lives. They experience what it feels like to be an active citizen and a useful resource within their community. In this way students are exposed to the ways and benefits of community-based participatory research during a formative part of their lives. Whether or not they eventually choose careers in environmental or biomedical sciences is really beside the point. What they gain is the growing sense of civic engagement and responsibility as they face the challenges of the future.