- Year 2017
- NSF Noyce Award # 1660796
- First Name Victor
- Last Name Donnay
- Discipline Other: Environmental Science
- Co-PI(s)
Paul Morgan, West Chester University, pmorgan@wcupa.edu
Margaret Stephens, Community College of Philadelphia, mstephens@ccp.edu - Presenters
Victor Donnay, vdonnay@gmail.edu
Need
An ongoing national concern is how to prepare and inspire all students, particularly those from under-represented groups, to succeed in STEM (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2010). EfS-Philly will explore the extent to which Education for Sustainability can serve as a catalyst to improve STEM learning by inspiring and mobilizing a wide range of stakeholders (students, teachers, staff, families, community groups, local organizations, and formal and informal educational institutions) to create and realize a new vision of STEM education for the 21st
Goals
The project, which goes by the acronym EfS-Philly, will support implementation
of the School District of Philadelphia’s GreenFutures sustainability plan and specifically its focus on Education for Sustainability (EfS). The goals of EfS-Philly are:
1. Initiate development of an EfS-themed STEM Ecosystem based on the collective impact framework that will bring together groups for cross-sector collaboration to support the GreenFutures implementation
2. Develop and pilot a model for place-based STEM teacher leadership development in EfS with the aim of submitting a Noyce Master Teacher Fellowship grant (September 2018 submission target) that will fully implement the model
3. Raise funds to support the infrastructure needed to sustain the EfS STEM Ecosystem, to provide matching funds for the Noyce Master Teacher Fellowship grant and to support general implementation of the GreenFutures plan.
Approach
Working with key partners of the School District of Philadelphia, we will recruit 12 teachers to participate in professional development that involves sustainability content issues focused on water, Education for Sustainability content and pedagogy and leadership skill development. These H.S. STEM teacher will work together to develop and adapt instructional material that aligns with both the school district scope and sequence, PA Standards, and the core standards for Education for Sustainability. They will pilot the lessons in their classrooms and then come together to evaluate their effectiveness as they continue to refine their practice. Teachers will be involved in determining their community resources and will involve students in community-based projects and field trips.
Outcomes
This is a new project that will start as of June 1, 2017. We hope to develop a pilot project that succeeds in developing teacher leaders who can support the School District of Philadelphia’s GreenFutures Plan. We see these teacher leaders as being both instructional leaders in their own classrooms and schools, and the guiding force that will help inform the submission of a future NSF Teacher Leadership proposal to expand this effort throughout the school district.
Broader Impacts
We posit that the EfS theme will inspire a wide array of regional stakeholders to become engaged in the project. Informed by the theory of collective impact (Kania, J. & Kramer, M., 2011), we will bring these stakeholders together to explore ways that we can formally collaborate and coordinate efforts to support the District. We will call this collective the EfS-Philly STEM Ecosystem as it incorporates principles of the STEM Ecosystem movement (Traphagen, K. &
Traill, S., 2014)
