Data Science, Human Geography, & Environmental Justice Youth Project (DL compatible)

in , , , ,

Data Science, Human Geography, & Environmental Justice Youth Project

Inspired by Undesign the Redline PBLs, Rebecca Solnit’s Infinite City, and the intersectionality my students navigated every day, I resolved to honor their distance learning investment by making the ecosystem and data analysis about their new pandemic-era environment. My students wanted to learn how to help, instead of remaining silent and isolated from what science was wrestling with in reality, both in terms of research and outreach. Learning human geography in the context of how to define life during the pandemic and how to design metrics for answering scientifically testable questions was one way they could figure out how to cope with daily catastrophe and grief.

STEP ONE: SURFACE EXISTING KNOWLEDGE & ESTABLISH COMMUNITY CONTEXT.

First I asked students to mark on a blank map of San Francisco where they lived (or where they were willing to report) in relation to the school. Students noticed certain patterns and created questions about it said about the students or the school.

STEP TWO: INVITE SHARING SOMATIC OBSERVATIONS TO IDENTIFY LAYERS OF PATTERNS.

We used a padlet to share the 5 senses we could describe in our own separate neighborhoods across the city, and used that to create a summary of the communities and the questions they presented.

Students developed their own sense of purpose and curiosity when their sense of intersectionality was acknowledged and made explicit through formalized data.

Some possible prompts:

  • What kinds of places do you go to relax or be at peace? Any green spaces? How far away are they?

  • What kinds of people live near you? How would they describe themselves?

  • How do the people around you make a living?

  • What products do you or people around you use? What brand names do you see most often?

  • What medical or health needs do you notice in people around you?

  • What sounds do you hear around you?

  • What smells do you sense?

STEP THREE: IDENTIFY ISSUES.

Approach: Question Formulation Technique based on recent headlines. Gathered a Jamboard of recent headlines based on patterns identified in Step 2 and asked students to add questions. Students then discussed further in another Jamboard to talk further about experiences in the city. During physical classroom learning, students used post-it notes and others added to a padlet.

Preview (distance-learning Jamboards)

STEP FOUR: EXPLORE AND ANALYZE DIFFERENT LAYERS AND TYPES OF DATA TO INFORM FOCUS.

To further spark our ideas for identifying the issues our communities experienced, we then examined a slide deck I created of 30+ KWL slides of San Francisco maps (biological, historical, cultural, political).

Preview:

STEP FIVE: RESEARCH AND CRITIQUE A SPECIFIC STRATEGY

Template side for describing and evaluating the solution

Are the strategies used by adults addressing the problems identified?

How does the data support your analysis?

Gallery: examples of factors examined

STEP SIX: CREATE A NEW STRATEGY

Students choose from options below:

Examples of student projects

(Template for students choosing to use Slides)

STEP SEVEN: SELF-EVALUATE

Students complete this rubric and grade themselves.

Afterword

The following year, I used it to help bridge interdependent relationships (kelp, their own neighborhoods where they've identified a/biotic factors, etc. and carrying capacity (Rapa Nui, Keeling Curve, covid curve).

I feel like I can do a lot more with this and I will continue to update the slides, embedded links, and more in-depth maps. Feel free to copy and use for your own needs.

Assignment: "This is What a Scientist Looks Like" - diversity in scientific community

in ,

Preview

Ready to copy & share on Google Classroom or print.

Bilingual (English-Spanish)

Links to 4 different sources

Feel free to adapt & redistribute for educational use.

Includes self-assessment and audience feedback.

Student Instructions

  1. Sign up to research a rarely-known scientist who interests you. Use these sources to help you choose a person to research:

2. Research online for information about the scientist, the science that person studies, or if the person has been researching anything recently. Use the links above to help you get started.

3. Using complete sentences, complete the blanks below using your own research. You can also write this on paper.

4. Rehearse your explanation for why you chose this scientist. Part of your grade will depend on your audience feedback (see end of worksheet).

Quick and dirty write up: first day sound cups seating

in ,
sound cups for seating, opaque cups sealed with mystery contents that match

In reply to CK’s ask for how to make sound cups:

Make Prep (only once)

  1. I usually get junk i have in pairs, anything that can make a distinctive sound. “Variation is key to both problem-solving & survival.”

whiteboard with instructions

>>Examples: Feathers. Paper clips. Binder clips with and without the little silver bits. Rubber bands. Jingle bells from napkin rings. 2 Dice. 5 dice. 3 crumpled paper balls. 1 crumpled paper ball. 5 golf pencils. 1 golf pencil. (That’s already 22 cups.)

2. I put them in red solo cups and seal the end with anything opaque, even another cup. Rubber band or Velcro or tape the end so students can double-check.

3. For each pair of cups, I also sharpie half of a word, so I can check whether they are correct. This adds another “variable” they can “measure”.

>>example: “bio-” on one cup, “-logy” on the other. If students notice, I say this is one observation they can turn into a test of more variables that can help them find the right cup: checking the bottoms of cups.

During Class

I greet them at the door with the cups, check them by last name as they enter, and ask them to take one randomly and then try to find the matching cup. I model: “hi, my name is, my pronouns are, and this is my cup.”

Once students realize this is the first activity they get into it. Occasionally I will go through and mix them up the way a Canadian goose does, suggesting they compare sounds.

The goal is to get them talking, especially what they notice about the sound or other variables they can compare between a pair of cups. They get to sit down at a table I assign (“just for this week”) once both have shown me what detail convinced them the most that they matched. I try to ask them to explain what they mean at least once.

Can’t hear anything! When it gets loud I get to remind them to observe carefully and mind each other’s listening needs, just like we will do this year for other needs.) They will also devise their own ways of listening better or isolating sounds to compare. It’s a nice chaos that gets them going with a very simple data-test-check sequence.

Timing? Your mileage may vary. If it takes way longer than you want, you can cut it off and bring everyone back together and say “when we explore other planets, we won’t have a teacher or a way to check the cup. We can use each other’s observations to figure out where we can go and what to do next.”

Do you let them open it up to check? Depends on the message you want to reinforce about statistical certainty in science.

Then I do an intake form and explain how icebreakers are for habituating your body and startle response to these other people, not to memorize everyone’s details on the first day.

Students report this is helpful for calming first day anxiety, while still challenging their minds.

Sustainable Strategies (TEK) - environmental justice & indigenous knowledge

in , ,
Screen Shot 2021-03-17 at 12.00.00 PM.png

Students sign up for 1 of 19 videos, articles, or websites that feature sustainability strategies that come from local knowledge, indigenous peoples, and Black philanthropists and entrepreneurs.

They analyze the source based on how it affects the ecosystem, then reflect on 3 prompts they choose from a list of 9 in Google Forms.

 

For each slide, student answers these questions:

Screen Shot 2021-03-17 at 11.57.50 AM.png
Screen Shot 2021-03-17 at 11.58.18 AM.png

1. What people and groups are involved and what is their goal?

2. What does this source tell you about the cultural values about food, land, and community? How does one generation trade knowledge with the other?

3. List the crops, organisms, and methods mentioned/shown.

4. How do these people blend past and present knowledge to heal the future? How effective do you think they are or will be?

 

Strategies included are:

Screen Shot 2021-03-17 at 11.59.32 AM.png

  1. Returning Condors to the PNW (Yurok)

  2. Indigenous fire management

  3. Improving farming with biodiversity in Peruvian cassava

  4. Water Poisoning in Japan, First Nations, and San Francisco

  5. Mayan Forest Garden

  6. Urban Farm: Detroit

  7. Science for a Hungry World

  8. Black Philanthropists Tackle Hunter in the Pandemic

  9. Urban Farm: Dallas

  10. Blossoms of Hope, Oregon

  11. 'Homecoming' trailer

  12. Heritage Crops in New Mexico

  13. First Nations students in Sustainability Careers

  14. Ash trees - Akwesasne Mohawk

  15. Salmon - Lummi Nation

  16. Water - Campo Kumeyaay Nation

  17. Wild Rice - Leech Lake Ojibwe

  18. White Earth Land Recovery Project

  19. American Indian Foods Guide

 

Reflection

Reflection: Students choose 1 from 3 sets of prompts.

Reflection: Students choose 1 from 3 sets of prompts.

Students choose 1 from 3 sets of prompts.

Free Web App: 800+ Prompts for Community Circles, Journals, & Warmups

in ,

I made a free, searchable webapp for 800+ (hopefully trauma-aware) prompts for community circles, journals, warmups, closings, etc. You can add it as a button on your phone homepage, too. It's linked to a Google spreadsheet I keep updated, so feel free to suggest changes or additions. Not all of the questions I like, but I have included just because it's an index.

If Glide ever removes its services, you can access the Google Sheets document by clicking here.

Database: "Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, & Sexuality in Nature & People"

in ,

I support teaching scientific discovery as a continuous process of testing and revising our models for explaining natural phenomenon. Every challenge to our existing knowledge offers an exciting learning opportunity for better understanding our world. Here is a brief inventory of examples from Stanford biologist Joan Roughgarden’s Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People from University of California Press, 2013 ed.

I am grateful for the privilege to openly discuss these many examples of the myriad spectrum of sexuality, polymorphisms, and gendered behavior in living things. (For anyone who has had their identity silenced or erased, what is “natural” is far more “queer” than anyone can imagine.)

My inventory of more than 200 species uses Roughgarden’s terminology, but all typos and misunderstandings are my own; please comment with corrections. I’ll continue cleaning up the formatting.

Activity: Science Identity Lab Coats

in

Activity Sequence

Note: mix into preexisting agenda; not intended to be its own lesson

Click for folding directions

  • Class 1: Discuss questions, brainstorm keywords, pre-write sentence frames

  • Class 2: Draft 3-5 sentences to each question, proofread a peer’s for feedback.

  • Class 3: Fold lab coat & decorate! Use art supplies, magazine cutouts, & typography/graffiti to illustrate the theme or copy the answer. Each question is labeled with the part of the lab coat.

  • Class 4 (or 5): Present lab coats. (Options: Explain/summarize/1detail (1) own coat, (2) a peer’s lab coat)

Assessment: Depending on what you want to target, you could assess any of these, from the worksheets to the spoken explanations. Also a great opportunity early in the year to see who gets to use scissors without supervision.

Other features: (1) Habituates students to explaining their metacognitive thinking about science in society, (2) encourages different forms of expression & understanding, (3) introduces idea of modeling as a proxy for understanding. Fun way for the class to get to know each other! (I had the students write their names on the collar or lapel.)

Student Work Examples

Activities: 4 Favorite Non-Verbal Community Builders

in ,

INGREDIENTS

RECIPE

1. 20+ identical, lightweight disposable cups (
e.g. SOLO, Dixie brands)

2. Rubber Band

3. String (2ft long/pc)

Tie 4 to 5 strings to 1 rubber band. Do this for each group.

  1. Instructor stacks cups into a random setup (e.g. pyramid, etc.)

  2. Each group member takes a string. Without talking, the group must use the rubber band to arrange their own stash of cups into the instructor’s setup.

  3. Increase complexity and repeat.

    Too easy? Have only one group member see the target stack. Set a timer.

    Reflect: How did talking affect your other abilities? Were you still able to accomplish the task? What helped you build the tower?

Full resource document with lesson background and cutouts here.

An excerpt from the document, which contains many variations for different age groups, etc:

Rules

1. This exercise must be played in complete silence. No talking.

2. You may not point or signal to other players with your hands in any way.

3. Each player must put together their own circle. No one else may show a player how to do it or do it for them.

4. This is an exercise in giving. You may not take a piece from another player, but you may give your pieces, one at a time, to any other members of your group, and other group members may give pieces to you. You may not place a piece in another person's puzzle; players must complete only their own puzzles. Instead, hand the piece to the other player, or place it beside the other pieces in front of them.

[Instructions]

Now you may take the pieces out of your envelope and place them in front of you, colored side up. This is a group task, and you will have 10 minutes to make your circles.

Remember, the task is not finished until each of you at your table has a completed circle in front of you. When all of you have finished, raise your hands.

Reflect: What was most challenging? What was easiest? What did you like the most about this activity? What did you like the least about this activity? What messages do you think this activity might be trying to say about working in groups?

GoogleDoc of Do Now, Instructions, & Exit Tickets, and photos of game pieces coming soon.

Writing Checks: Building Narratives From Evidence

Full resource page with lesson background here

GoogleDoc of lesson for my classroom coming soon.

GoogleDoc adaptation of it for my classroom setup coming soon

copyleft notice: You are free to copy and adapt all the teaching resources on this page.
I appreciate feedback on what to keep/toss/expand/scaffold.