PIs Sarah Garlick (HBRF) and Kathy Fallon Lambert (Harvard Forest), together with John Besley (MSU), Pamela Templer (BU) and Peter Groffman (CUNY) will lead a team of scholars and practitioners to build knowledge about mutual learning between scientists and adult stakeholders and to develop evidence-based practices in the context of place-based ecosystem research. Several research questions guide this work, including, how willing are participating scientists to take part in public engagement activities? What are their attitudes and beliefs about whether engagement can be effective and whether they have the necessary skills? And, how willing are participating scientists to build relationships with stakeholders using evidence-based strategies?
The new grant was awarded through the NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This is a follow-up to the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation's Forest Science Dialogues project, which allowed investigators to develop a roundtable method of facilitating direct, in-person engagement between scientists and stakeholders, and to use public engagement to define key areas of overlapping interest between local stakeholders and scientists who work at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest.
For more information about this project, please contact PI Sarah Garlick: sgarlick@hubbardbrookfoundation.org.
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