Youth As Community Science Experts in Green Energy Technology

Y

8

After School Programs; Interviews; Student Participation; STEM Education; Energy; Conservation (Environment); Science Activities; Knowledge Level; Occupational Aspiration; Program Effectiveness; Urban Youth; Science and Society; Science Careers; Expertise; Youth Programs

In this paper, the authors examine what it means to become a community science expert (CSE) and why this goal is important for youth in afterschool environments. Using "Green Energy Technology in the City" (GET City) as a case study, they describe how this afterschool program nurtures youth as CSEs. They draw on data gathered in 2007-2010 including student and teacher interviews; field notes on student participation; student artifacts; and pre- and post-participation measures of technology knowledge and skills, STEM practices, career aspirations, and community engagement. The guiding questions for the case study included "What does it mean to become a CSE?" and "Why should developing CSEs be an important outcome of afterschool programming?" The authors report the GET City Model was a supports to urban youth in becoming CSEs by (1) providing a platform where they can engage in scientific discourse while having the freedom to affect their community in ways that matter to them; (2) youths developing as CSEs positively affected their interests and aspirations in science and engineering; (3) youths engagement in science shows they can engage in complex practices at the intersections of culture, place, and science, in the process of becoming engaged CSEs; and (4) it gave youths opportunities to engage in authentic, scientifically rigorous, and culturally relevant investigations and to educate others, on their own terms, about their findings. GET City youths' work as CSEs makes a difference both in their communities and in their own orientation toward science as a part of their current and future lives.

ERIC

16

2014

EJ1016811