Thank you for this compelling video, Marilu. It makes a strong case for developing any program project starting from authentic community need. Would love to hear more about how the grounded theory and community-based participatory research have manifest in design elements and how they are being assessed.

HI Jamie,

Thanks so much for watching our video. This video represents the work of "the ICBOs" (Independent Community-based Organizations). We are fifteen community leaders from organizations representing underserved communities across the U.S. In November of 2015, after one and a half years of building trust with one another, we began the ambitious task of carrying out Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) to understand barriers and opportunities to improving equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM programming. We have established a vision and mission for our group and rules that guide our work (based on the Jemez Principles). These include equitable credit, fair representation at conferences and dissemination venues, inclusiveness and transparency, equitable compensation for community expertise, bottom-up organization, letting communities speak for themselves, consensus, solidarity, and mutuality. In using CBPR, we have built on strengths and developed collaborative, equitable partnerships in all phases of research. We are committed to producing outcomes that mutually benefit all partners, promoting co-learning, and attending to social inequities.

We chose to use Grounded Theory approaches because we wanted to directly uncover perspectives of our communities and we felt it was important to minimize preconceptions from the dominant culture. We began with reflexive, intuitive questions; these led to a collection of questions and protocols for a survey and follow-up interviews that have been administered to a total of 30 individuals representing historically underrepresented communities so far. These tools have led to qualitative data rich in content and depth. We collectively analyzed the data and obtained preliminary results presented at over 15 conferences so far. We have created two workbooks (one for STEM serving institutions and one for community–based organizations) and four scientific posters to disseminate research results in a practical manner for organizations that want to achieve more equitable partnerships.

Please let us know what you think!

It's interesting—I feel like Marilu's focus is the project equivalent of something like the UX/UI discussions that developers undergo when creating applications and web experiences for visitors. It's so easy for people to take it for granted or overlook the need for authenticity and relevance when they're focused on their own goals and constructs. Looking forward to seeing the outcomes of this project!

Thanks Marilu. Really thoughtful, inclusive front end work that starts from values, as Charles noticed. Am I correct that part of this work is also a citizen science project called "Celebrate Urban Birds"?  Seems that products like the workbooks could have wide applications in the design of informal STEM learning settings and experiences.

Hi Jamie. Just to add to Marilú's comments, this project is a collaborative research project so although there is no evaluation - we do have a Committee of Visitors (COV) serving in the role of "critical friends" of the research.

Karen

Hi team, thanks for sharing your project. I noted in Marilu's first comment that the 15 ICBOs spent over a year gaining each other's trust before officially embarking on the work. Pulling together that large set of diverse partners is ambitious, but incredibly valuable! I am curious to know what the impetus for this project was, how you all got together in the first place, and what challenges you have encountered in pulling together a large collaboration. 

This is such a well-done video. This is such an important area to explore and understand. It's interesting you spent a long time first establishing trust within the group. I think that's an important but often overlooked step in projects like these. 

 Thank you so much for your video! I appreciate your dedication to community-based participatory research that is working to transform the dominant research paradigm. I understand that the focus of your work is to understand barriers and opportunities to improving equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM programming and build more equitable partnerships. I am wondering what types of STEM problems or projects your communities have been working on. From earlier comments it looks as though one project has to do with Celebrating Urban birds. Could you talk some more about this project? Also, are any community groups tackling environmental racism issues such as lead paint and water contamination, urban food deserts, or hazardous waste facility siting?

Thank you, Laura. This group is using Celebrate Urban Birds (celebrateurbanbirds.org) as a STEAM component, but what this community-based participatory research is looking at is inequitable collaborations between informal science institutions and community-based organizations and the lack of equity, diversity and inclusion in the sciences. The work points directly to issues of power and privilege and institutional racism.

Each of the communities participating in the research are using the results in their own communities which include urban farming, healing through music, hunting/fishing, birding, etc.

(Bobby Wilson and ICBO)

I have just viewed the finish product of the video for the first time. My hat goes off to the WorldBeat Cultural Center and the team that worked on this great piece of art. As an ICBO, I would like to say thanks to the team for letting me be a part of bringing this work to the forefront of educators, community leaders, those that are left out of the mainstream of society and most of all to those that are in high places. To all of you that viewed this video please join the Power of 30 to help keep this work at the top of everyone agenda.

Join us in Atlanta, Georgia, September 13-16, 2018 for the American Community Gardening Association 39th Annual Conference and a full day pre-conference workshop around the video. For more information around the pre-conference visit communitygarden.org.

This is such inspiration work! And so needed! Could you talk more about how the work of the ICBO's is getting disseminated to the science museums? Would you considering presenting at the Association of Science and Technology Centers Conference? 

Thank you for your comment, Preeti. Members of the ICBOs have been sharing the results of their research at conferences like the Science Education for Equity, Diversity and Social Justice (S.E.E.D.S.), the American Indian Science & Engineering Society regional conference, the National Heirloom Expo, the American Community Gardening Association, among others.

We've produced posters created with art from the community artists, one workbook for informal science institutions and we are working on one for community-based organizations, and dissemination through artistic expressions. We have shared the posters on our blog: https://power30icbos.blogspot.com/ and we also have a FaceBook page: Community Perspectives https://www.facebook.com/groups/1566672026757294/

Last year we had a poster session at the ASTC Conference in California. This year we’ll be at the poster session again in October. We are looking forward to seeing you.

Marilu, Makeda, and Karen,

Sincerest congratulations on this! As a long-time producer, I'm thrilled to see such beautiful cinematography, creative edits, polished graphics, and well-selected music. You do your mission justice with the quality of your visual storytelling.

More importantly, though, I really appreciate what you are doing with CBPR and equity, diversity, and inclusion. This is such important work, and I believe your approach -- from the ground up, working with community leaders -- is powerful. We are doing something similar with Explorer At Large (our NSF video can be found here), working on disrupting PreK-12 STEM education by going after the kids first through curiosity. Get the kids onboard, and the teachers, administrators, and parents will follow.

When time allows, I would love to have a longer conversation about your vision and work, but for now I am more than happy to give you my vote for Presenter's Choice. Best of luck using storytelling and Grounded Theory to effect social change!

[And Go Big Red! - Cornell Class of '93]

Thank you for the thoughtful replies and thorough explanation throughout, Marilu and Karen. It's important for the designers, evaluators and researchers in our field to know about this work and learn about the challenges that you are navigating. Would really like to hear about what happens when theory is applied to practice in the Urban Birds component of the work, for example. Kudos.

Thank you for your comments, Jamie. In addition to Karen’s answer, we have learned that we cannot speak for the communities we are partnering with. We must develop the trust and create a safe space for communities to speak for themselves.

Also, changing meeting venues has been a transformative step in our work. For the last two years, at the invitation and suggestion from the community researchers, we began holding our meetings in the communities where the community-based organizations are rooted in. It has been an amazing and powerful experience.