Education Outreach Programs

Our education outreach programs focus primarily on urban ecology and urban sustainability. The objectives of these programs are to link the community with on-going research projects at the Global Institute of Sustainability. These programs and the education components are:

Central Arizona—Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Project

Through interdisciplinary projects integrating natural sciences, social science, and engineering, Central Arizona—Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) examines the effects of urbanization on a desert ecosystem and vice versa. We have several education initiatives associated with this project:

• Ecology Explorers
  Through this award-winning outreach program, thousands of students in over 75 schools across the Phoenix metro area conduct scientific research in their own backyards and schoolyards. Students collect data that is helping us to understand the workings of an urban ecosystem while learning about scientific inquiry and the environment. Teachers participate in this program by attending summer internships, school-year workshops or contacting the SOS education outreach office.
• Service at Salado
  Service at Salado engages elementary and middle school students and ASU undergraduates in after-school clubs that learn about and contribute to the City of Phoenix Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area. It is a partnership between ASU programs, CAP LTER and several community partners.
• Ecoplexity: Teaching Ecosystem Complexity Through Field Research
  This project helps develop a heightened capacity for systems thinking among high school life science teachers and environmental education providers. We have created tools to assist them in their teaching about complexity through the use of field experimentation, reading scientific literature, conceptual modeling, and simulations. Several LTER sites are cooperating on this project.

Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC)

This Center studies the decision processes used to plan and manage water resources and urbanization. The education and outreach components of this project include several items which have been completed and we are currently developing teaching material at the high school and community college level for DCDC products:

• Water Education Providers Survey
• Advanced Water Education Workshops
• 2007
• 2006

Learning through Engineering Design and Practice: STEM Education for an Equitable Future

This project engages female and minority youth traditionally under-represented in IT/STEM fields in multi-year out-of school technological design and problem solving experiences. It is a partnership between several Arizona State University programs and community partners. One of the urban sustainability projects will challenge students to design structures to mitigate the urban heat island.

Mediterranean Landscape Dynamics Project

This project examines long-term socioecological processes that shaped Mediterranean landscapes from the beginning of farming to the beginning of complex civilization. The education component will focus on sustainability in the past and the future.

Agrarian Landscapes in Transition: A Cross-Scale Approach

This project traces the effects of the introduction, spread, and abandonment of agriculture at six long-term ecological research sites. Education components of this project were developed by Phoenix-area teachers for elementary and middle school children.