2024 Spring Newsletter

Latest Happenings

Class is in session!

Over the past year and a half, we put some serious thought into what a systems thinking course could look like for undergraduate and graduate students. This spring our ideas became reality! We are currently co-teaching our new course, Systems Thinking through Food, Energy, Water, and Societal Systems (what we call FEWSS). We are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to learn alongside a small group of amazing students who are eager to tackle complex FEWSS problems. 

We plan to iteratively design new and improved versions of this course in future years. We are also hoping to remix some of the course content to create a flexible, easy-to-use toolkit of systems thinking exercises that can be implemented in the K-12 education space. 

To give you a flavor of the course, we are sharing our syllabus below. Additionally, we invite you to complete the Systems Thinking for Resilience exercise provided. This activity is one of the early assignments for our students and is a good place to start for those who would like to dip a toe into the systems thinking pond in a fun and playful way.

Our mascot is a screaming goat. It might sound strange, but we promise it makes sense. Check out the syllabus for more info.
We are reading and discussing two books, Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows and Systems Thinking for Social Change by David Peter Stroh.
When the weather is nice, we like to go for a stroll around the building to stretch our legs and our minds.
Our class dug deep into the impact that digital technologies have had on our lives using the Iceberg model to look beyond events to the systems structures and mental models that drive system behavior.

Two New USDA Grant-Funded Cultivate ACCESS Programs

Cultivate ACCESS 

(Agricultural Career Communities to Empower Students in STEM)

Since its inception in 2017, Cultivate ACCESS (funded by USDA-NIFA) has invited high school students from a variety of backgrounds to explore careers within the agricultural-STEM sector. The program is created with a passion to increase participation of underrepresented groups in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)-related agricultural careers through 

With recent grant funding provided by USDA, our team is offering two new Cultivate ACCESS programs for high school educators and students. 

The first program focuses on Data Science in Agriculture, the second focuses on Climate Resilience and its connection to the Future of Work in agriculture.

The two programs are similar in structure so we have outlined both programs below to help differentiate what each program has to offer and what expectations we have for educator and student participants. For more detailed information on each program, check out our recruitment flyer. 

We recently selected educator participants for each program's 2024 cohort and will be launching both programs this spring! 

More info about Cultivate ACCESS can be found at: https://cultivate.unl.edu.

Data Science in Agriculture

Supporting Nebraska high school science, math, and agriculture education teachers. Participants will:

Climate Resilience

Supporting Nebraska high school science teachers. Participants will:

This work is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Women and Minorities in STEM Program, award #2023-38503-41177, and Food and Agricultural Non-Formal Education Program, award #2023-67037-41015.

Taking Tech Outside to Support Inquiry-Based Teaching 

Garden TOOLS 

(Technology Opportunities in Outdoor Learning Spaces)

We continue to conduct pre-service teacher trainings to support curiosity and exploration through technology-rich, inquiry-based outdoor learning. Each fall and spring, Erin facilitates pre-service teacher professional development opportunities at UNK and Wesleyan in which participants learn to code BBC micro:bits as environmental sensors and adopt an inquiry-based approach. This past year approximately 60 pre-service educators took part in the trainings as part of their science or math methods courses.

In addition to providing in-person training, we have created a wealth of free resources including lessons, how-to coding guides, engineering cards, and a completely free online,  video-based training.

All Garden TOOLS resources can be found on the Growable website at: https://go.unl.edu/gardentools.

Future directions: Currently, we are exploring international collaboration opportunities with partners in Norway to expand and strengthen technology-rich outdoor learning opportunities in both countries.

UNK students enjoyed taking tech outside to explore and be curious about light, temperature, and soil moisture.
Participants designed and piloted an inquiry-based lesson at a local elementary school.
In spring 2023, pre-service elementary teachers at UNK learned to code and use BBC micro:bits as environmental sensors.

Readings

Growable Book Club

Our Growable book club recently finished reading Design for Belonging by Susan Wise from the Stanford d.school. Before each book club session, we ask members to add questions to a shared document and use these questions to guide discussion. 

The reading sparked thoughtful conversation about the ways our events and communication encourage belonging (or not) and how we can use a variety of levers of design to increase belonging and inclusion moving forward.

Interested in the focus of our discussions? We have shared our discussion guide below.

Jenny and Erin Solo Reads

We do a good bit of reading on our own as well. Below are two of our "solo reads" that we think are worth checking out!

Jenny's Book

Ever wonder why some ideas spread around the world is a few days while some ideas seem to get no traction? Change: How to Make Big Things Happen by Damon Centola explains this phenomena and how we can leverage the system to improve the chances of our ideas sticking.

Thanks to Jentry  for this book recommendation! This was a fascinating read and  really made me think about how we teach students and educators - especially if we're expecting behavior change. I'm looking forward to applying some of Centola's techniques to spread systems thinking skills.

Erin's Book

Tackling complex problems is always, always, always a group effort. So what do we do when we find ourselves in an increasingly polarized world where sometimes we can't even bring ourselves to talk to one another let alone work on an issue together? 

If you are me, you read I Never Thought of It That Way by Monica Guzman. I think Jenny sent me her TEDxSeattle talk a while back which piqued my interest. Her book was a deep dive loaded with actionable tips on how to stay curious and not judgmental (great advice from Ted Lasso!) when navigating even the toughest of conversations.

Ponderings

Everyone take your shoes off and get comfortable because it's Paradigm Shifting time!
Whoever said that tackling complex challenges can't be fun never came to one of our gatherings.

Paradigm Shifters

Creating space for real conversations with our network of systems thinkers has been such a joy! Huge thanks to everyone who has taken time to contribute to our discussions. We've spent time doing a deep dive of system traps and opportunities present in our current education system and searching for leverage actions to make real lasting change. 

Interested in learning more? We have linked a guidebook below from KnowledgeWorks.org. It provides a great introduction to applying systems thinking concepts to support taking small actions that can make big changes in how our education system looks and functions.

Learning about the education system from different perspectives was one of the most rewarding parts of our time together.

Manuscripts

We published two journal articles this past year in partnership with our collaborators.

'Prairie Protector: Student Development of Systems Thinking Habits in the Context of Agroecosystems' is a qualitative study that explores how students express systems thinking habits after playing our video game, Prairie Protector.

'Improving Elementary Pre-Service Teachers' Science Teaching Self-Efficacy through Garden-Based Technology Integration'  shows the impact of Garden TOOLS professional development activities on pre-service teacher confidence and expectations for their students ability to learn science.

Our Systems Thinking Development Framework is presented in more detail in our Prairie Protector journal article to the left. 

Continuing the Conversation

We hope this digital space is a two-way street. We want to know what's up in your corner of the world, what big ideas you are thinking about, and if you see ways for us to connect and support one another. 

We created the digital bulletin board below for you to quickly and easily reach out to us. Want to leave us a note just to say hi? We'd love that! Want to show us a picture of where your new Growable sticker lives? We can't wait to see it! 

Trouble seeing the bulletin board?

Click this link to open it in a new window or scan the QR code provided!


Rather send us an email? Our inboxes are open!

Dr. Erin Ingram

Science Literacy and Community Engagement Coordinator

eingram3@unl.edu 

Dr. Jenny Keshwani

Science Literacy Specialist

jkeshwani@unl.edu