Elena Bautista Sparrow

University of Alaska Fairbanks · International Arctic Research Center/School of Natural Resources and Extension

Youth-focused community and citizen science (CCS) is increasingly used to promote science learning and to increase the accessibility of the tools of scientific research among historically marginalized and underserved communities. CCS projects are frequently categorized according to their level of public participation and their distribution of power...

Indigenous Peoples across the Arctic have adapted to environmental change since time immemorial, yet recent climate change has imposed unprecedented and abrupt changes that affect the land and sea upon which communities rely. Co-created community-based observing programs offer an opportunity to harness the holistic breadth of knowledge in communiti...

Due to the rapidly changing environmental conditions and necessity of cross-cultural engagement, the sub-Arctic is a prime testbed for innovative citizen science program design. The Winterberry and Fresh Eyes on Ice projects focus on advancing knowledge of rapidly changing environmental conditions (focusing on native berry species and freshwater ic...

This dataset contains observations of fruit retention Rosa acicularis (prickly rose), Empetrum nigrum (crowberry), Vaccinium vitis-idaea (lowbush cranberry or lingonberry), and Viburnum edule (highbush cranberry). Data were collected at 47 communities in 6 ecoregions across Alaska, primarily by youth groups and interested volunteers. Ecoregions inc...

In 2016, a group of Earth Science organizations and Indigenous scientists affiliated with the Rising Voices Center for Indigenous and Earth Sciences worked together to submit a proposal to the first call for NSF INCLUDES pilot projects. The proposal, entitled “Integrating Indigenous and Western Knowledge to Transform Learning and Discovery in the G...

Tropical mountain permafrost has a unique thermal regime due to ground surface exposure to strong solar radiation. The intensity of the surface offset resulting from snow cover also strongly affects the absence or presence of permafrost. Latent heat transfer and reflected solar radiation (higher albedo) that occur during the snow-covered season con...

Undergraduate geoscience and natural resource management students desire employable skills that can immerse them in jobs or graduate training related to their majors. Career trajectories for undergraduate Natural Resource Management majors at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) typically fall into four categories: tribal, state, and federal ag...

Mulder, C.P.H., K.V. Spellman, E.B. Sparrow (2020) Winterberry: understanding the dynamics of fleshy fruit loss in fall and winter. Witness the Arctic 24(2): 27-31. In the far north, many plant species retain their fruits into the fall and throughout the winter. Fleshy fruits provide a high-quality food source at a time when few other resources ar...

Presentation of the bases to create a DEI Working Group

Climate changes occurring in the Arctic impact the entire planet, yet few experience these shifts as rapidly as Alaska Native communities. When tribal youth connect with elders, K-12 educators, and scientists to map personal stories of change, scientific approaches to monitor these changes and strategies for stewardship emerge. For four years, the...

Abstract Accessibility of scientific research to underrepresented voices is a forefront issue. Intentionally-designed citizen science programs, such as the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ (UAF) citizen science and learning research project “Arctic Harvest-Public Participation in Scientific Research,” are poised to improve the participation and effe...

Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) is a powerful tool for climate learning. Participants in climate change related projects can gain scientific knowledge and science process skills while simultaneously helping generating new scientific knowledge that could span community or regional scales. PPSR has great potential to reach broad au...

As the field of Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) has rapidly grown over the past decade, so too has the awareness of issues of diversity and inclusion in the design of programs aimed at inviting all people to the table of science. We share the early outcomes from the Winterberry- Arctic Harvest Project, where 28 communities across...

Our students recognize the need for climate change research and action, and we aim to facilitate the development of skills to enable them to meet this need. This presentation details a partnership between a climate change research center in Alaska and a STEM program in a community college in Southern California to build climate workforce skills amo...

The Alaska K-12 science/STEM education community has a long history of evidence-based instruction and curriculum development that is responsive to the cross-cultural nature of K-12 education in Alaska communities. Despite the attention to culturally responsive education in K-12 education, awareness is generally lacking among science researchers and...

Building community with rural and underrepresented groups has been a challenge in the field of citizen science. At the University of Alaska Fairbanks, a team of scientists, educators, Extension professionals, and evaluators have joined efforts to take on this challenge across Alaska. The goals for Arctic Harvest-Public Participation in Scientific R...

As rapid changes occur in the Arctic, we work to build the capacity to generate new knowledge through 4H youth engagement and citizen science programs, including Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE).

This appendix is aimed at providing the full dataset to support the summaries of our findings in Connected climate change learning through citizen science: An assessment of priorities and needs of formal and informal educators and community members in Alaska, by K.V. Spellman, E.B. Sparrow, M. Chase, A. Larson, and K. Kealy.

Citation: Spellman KV, Sparrow EB, Chase MJ, Larson A, Kealy K. 2018. Connected climate change learning through citizen science: an assessment of priorities and needs of formal and informal educators and community members in Alaska. Connected Science Learning 1(6): 1-24. ABSTRACT: Citizen science offers significant potential to address pressing cl...

Integrated science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) solutions and effective, relevant learning processes are required to address the challenges that a changing climate presents to many Arctic communities. Learning that can both enhance a community’s understanding and generate new knowledge about climate change and it’s impacts at both local...

As the acreages of agricultural lands increase, changes in surface energetics and evapotranspiration (ET) rates may arise consequently affecting regional climate regimes. The objective of this study was to evaluate summertime ET dynamics and surface energy processes in a subarctic agricultural farm in Interior Alaska. The study includes micrometeor...

Ecologists often engage in global-scale research through partnerships among scientists from many disciplines. Such research projects require collaboration, interdisciplinary thinking, and strong communication skills. We advocate including these three practices as an integral part of ecology education at the kindergarten through 12th grade (K–12) le...

The Monitoring Seasons Through Global Learning Communities project, also known as Seasons and Biomes, engages primary and secondary students in earth system and environmental science research in the learning of science in schools. The overall goal of this inquiry- and project-based International Polar Year (IPY) project is to increase precollege st...

This community-based Permafrost/Active Layer Monitoring (PALM) Program is greatly successful from both educational and scientific viewpoints. The Permafrost/Active Layer Monitoring Program is an ongoing project that builds on work begun in 2005 to establish long-term permafrost and active layer monitoring sites adjacent to schools in Alaska and in...

Environmental degradation, lack of educational resources and extreme poverty characterize many countries in Africa. These issues require teachers to prepare students to understand, address and solve these and other challenges facing societies in the twenty-first century. Using the environment as an authentic and integrating context, a team of scien...

Soils is one of the science investigation areas in the Global learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), an international science and education program (112 countries) that teaches primary and secondary students to learn science by doing science. For each area of investigation GLOBE provides background information, measurement pr...

The International Polar Year 2007–2008 (IPY) represented one of the largest international scientific research efforts ever undertaken. In addition to its goals of making major advances in polar knowledge, stimulating new and enhanced observational systems and infrastructure, and inspiring a new generation of polar scientists and engineers, it also...

Career Development training is one arena where graduate students and early career scientists have expressed a void in their formal instruction. The Association of Early Career Scientists (APECS) has partnered with the National Science Foundation Arctic Systems Science Thermokarst (ARCSS-TK) Project and the University of Canterbury in Christchurch,...

The Permafrost/Active Layer Monitoring Program is an ongoing project, which builds on work begun in 2005 to establish long-term permafrost and active layer monitoring sites adjacent to schools in Alaskan communities and in the circumpolar permafrost region. Currently, there are about 200 schools in Alaska involved in the project including also Dena...

Phenology plays a key role in the environment and ecosystem. Primary and secondary students around the world have been collecting vegetation phenology data and contributing to ongoing scientific investigations. They have increased research capacity by increasing spatial coverage of ground observations that can be useful for validation of remotely s...

The International Polar Year (2007-2008) was an international scientific campaign to study and raise awareness of the Earth's polar regions. Several scientists and educators that visited the polar regions during this time used a blog to share their day-to-day and scientific research activities with school children and the general public. Due to adv...

Multiple perspectives are being incorporated in geoscience research and education exemplified by ongoing projects at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This presentation will highlight two such projects. In the Seasons and Biomes project, that monitors seasons through global learning communities, in an effort to increase K-12 student understanding...

Background/Question/Methods Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) is an international science and education program for primary and secondary students with 112 participating countries and more than 50000 GLOBE-trained teachers representing over 20000 schools. GLOBE’s mission is to promote the teaching and learning of...

Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain is 5,895 meters above sea level and is located 330 km south of the equator in Tanzania. In 1976 glaciers covered most of Mt. Kilimanjaro's summit; however in 2000, an estimated eighty percent of the ice cap has disappeared since the last thorough survey done in 1912. There is increased scientific interest...

Twelve Alaskan elementary and middle school classes (grades 3-8) partnered with twelve Australian middle school classes, with each pair using web-based strategies to develop a collaborative ice-mystery fictional book incorporating authentic polar science. Three professional development workshops were held, bringing together educators and polar scie...

The GLOBE (Global learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) program is among the most successful long-term citizen scientist programs engaging K-12 students, in-service and pre-service teachers, as well as community members in different areas of geoscience investigations: atmosphere/weather, land cover biology, soils, hydrology, and veg...

There are many effective methods for teaching earth science education that are being successfully used during the fourth International Polar Year (IPY). Relevance of IPY and the polar regions is better understood using a systems thinking approach used in earth science education. Changes in components of the earth system have a global effect; and ch...

Arctic climate is the result of a complex interplay between the atmosphere, the ocean, sea ice and a terrestrial component in which freezing and thawing are critical to variations over a range of timescales. In view of the delicate balances between these components and their poorly documented sensitivities, it is not surprising that global climate...

The Seasons and Biomes Project is an inquiry- and project- based initiative that monitors seasons, specifically their interannual variability, with the goal of increasing primary and secondary students' understanding of the earth system, and engaging them in research as a way of learning science, understanding climate change, contributing to climat...

Leaf and flower phenology of Parah trees, Elateriospermum tapos a canopy species, was studied at Khao Nan National Park, in southern Thailand in 2007 and 2008. Within this national park, the study site is located at the Parah Park Ranger Station, latitude 8.86543 ° N and longitude 99.62230 ° E. Maximum and minimum temperatures, precipitation and re...

Alaskan and Argentinean students as well as arctic and antarctic scientists participated in two International Polar Year (IPY) Pole to Pole Videoconferences in 2007 and 2008. The videoconferences involved elementary, middle and high school students as well as scientists from Alaska, Argentina, Colorado and Washington DC. Alaska students were locate...

The urban heat island effect, classically associated with high impervious surface area (ISA), low vegetation fractional cover (Fr), and high land surface temperature (LST), has been linked to changing patterns of vegetation phenology, especially spring growth. In this study, a collaboration with the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the E...

1] This work evaluates whether continuity between Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is achievable for monitoring phenological changes in Alaska. This work also evaluates whether NDVI can detect changes in start of the growing seaso...

A very rich network for higher education and outreach during the fourth International Polar Year (IPY) exists through the University of the Arctic (UArctic, www.uarctic.org), a collaborative consortium of more than ninety institutions e.g. universities, colleges, and other organizations committed to higher education and research in the North, as we...

The Summer Institute was organized by the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, in collaboration with the A.N. Severtsov Institute for Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia, and the Central Forest State Nature Biosphere Reserve in Fedorovskoe, Russia. The Institute wa...

The fourth International Polar Year (IPY) differs from former IPYs because of the broader focus of scientific research but also the inclusion of education outreach. The Monitoring Seasons Through Global Learning Communities (MSTGLC) Project, also called Seasons and Biomes, engages pre-college teachers and students in climate change research to lear...

Monitoring Seasons through Global Learning Communities (MSTGLC) is an inquiry- and project-based project that monitors seasons, specifically their interannual variability, in order to increase K-12 students' understanding of the Earth system by providing teacher professional development in Earth system science and inquiry, and engaging K-12 student...

Alaskan Native elders, other local experts, scientists and educators worked collaboratively in providing professional development science workshops and follow-up support for K-12 teachers. Cognizant of the commonalities between western science and Native knowledge, the Observing Locally Connecting Globally (OLCG) program blended GLOBE Earth science...

In biomes that have distinct winter seasons, start of spring phenological events, specifically timing of budburst and green-up of leaves, coincides with transpiration. Seasons leave annual signatures that reflect the dynamic nature of the hydrologic cycle and link the different spheres of the Earth system. This paper evaluates whether continuity be...

An important responsibility of all researchers is to communicate effectively with the rest of the scientific community, students, and the general public. Communication is “a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs or behavior” (Merriam-Webster 1988). It is a two-way process that requir...

GLOBE is an international hands-on earth science education program that involves scientists, teachers and students in more than 16,000 primary and secondary schools. GLOBE is funded by the National Aeronautics Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of State. GLOBE works with schools (teachers and studen...

Since 1999, GLOBE students have made over 75,000 phenology measurements at or near their schools and have reported annual dates for bud burst, green-up, leaf growth, and green-down for selected trees, shrubs, and grasses. Students in Alaska have collected nearly half the phenology data. This data set, largely untapped for scientific purposes, provi...

This study explores the roles that regional partners play in helping to support implementation of the GLOBE program, an international earth science and education initiative. Researchers at SRI International conducted case studies of two GLOBE partners' practices in an effort to identify the factors that contribute to effective implementation of the...

This book explores exemplary professional development practices in science education. Framed within the NSES, this book is a valuable guide to science educators who are developing and enacting professional development programs.

The GLOBE program is an international partnership network of K-12 students, teachers, and scientists working together to study and understand the global environment. Through its suite of data collection and extensive network, GLOBE provides a valuable resource for studying the impact of climate change on the environment. Students make observations...

The project goal is to engage students in scientific research as a way of learning science, math, and technology in K-12 classrooms by providing an opportunity for student-scientist collaborations. This NSF-funded GLOBE project is of significance to scientists who track plant phenological changes as an indicator of climate change and study carbon c...

We report on an inquiry-based long-term study of Deadman's Slough by successive classes of fourth grade students at University Park Elementary School in Fairbanks, Alaska. Since 2000 successive classes of fourth graders have studied the ecology of Deadman's Slough, off the Chena River and located by the school. Students have focused on (1) identifi...

The GLOBE program has provided opportunities for environmental science research and education collaborations among scientists, teachers and K-12 students, and for cross-cultural enrichment nationally and abroad. In Alaska, GLOBE has also provided funding leverage in some cases, and a base for several other science education programs that share a co...

Students in primary and secondary schools are engaged in long-term monitoring of the environment at or near their schools, in collaboration with scientists and educators, through the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program. GLOBE students in more than 10,000 schools in 97 countries have reported data from almost...

Methane and nitrous oxide are important radiatively active gases that are influenced by agricultural practices. This study assesses long-term tillage, crop residue management, and N fertilization rates on the flux of these two gases at a high latitude site representing the northern fringe of large-scale agriculture. Cumulative methane uptake for th...

Experiments were conducted at two locations in Alaska to determine effects of incorporating and harvesting forage legumes on subsequent barley crops. Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) following forage legume crops and fallow had higher yields and plant N than barley following non-N2-fixing crops. Incorporating, as opposed to harvesting, legume crops some...

Information on amounts of N2 fixed by legumes in subarctic regions is lacking. We determined the N2-fixation potential of seven legume species under field conditions in subarctic Alaska. Seasonal N2 fixation was estimated for alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), red clover (Trifolium pratense L.), yellow sweetclover (Melilotus officinalis Lam.), fababean...

A knowledge of the nutrient dynamics that occur with land use changes, e.g., in clearing forests for farmland, is useful in choosing the most efficient soil and fertilizer management practices. To determine net in situ P and N mineralization and nitrification rates of forest floor materials and their nutrient value for agricultural crops, plastic b...

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), red clover (Trifolium pratense L.), yellow sweet-clover (Medicago officinalis L.), fababean (Vicia faba L.), lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.), pea (Pisum sativum L.), and white lupin (Lupinus albus L.) were evaluated as annual crops in central Alaska on neutral and acid soils for their potential herbage productivity and...

Large-scale argicultural development in high latitude regions could lead to large losses of soil C due to accelerated decomposition. Changes in decomposition rates of forest floor material upon land clearing in interior Alaska were simulated by measuring, over a 2-year period, changes in mass, cellulose, lignin, and N of forest floor materials and...

Potential P and C mineralization rates were determined in a 12-week laboratory incubation study on subarctic forest and agricultural soil samples with and without N fertilizer added. There was no significant difference in net inorganic P produced between N fertilized and unfertilized soils. The forest soil surface horizons had the highest net inorg...

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in soil has been used as an index of soil microbial biomass, but efficient extraction of ATP from soil is often a problem. The objective of this study was to find an ATP extraction procedure which is simple, can be readily adapted to routine extraction of ATP at remote field locations, and is efficient at extracting ATP...

This study documents the residual effects of summer and winter experimental oil spills on soil 10 yr after application. Measurements included adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels, in vitro carbon dioxide evolution, cellulose and wood decomposition, soil N, and total and non‐oil C. About 18 and 14 kg petroleum residues per m ² remained in the soil in...

This study was conducted to determine both the short- and long-term effects of spills of hot Prudhoe Bay crude oil on permafrost terrain in subarctic interior Alaska. Two experimental oil spills of 7570 liters (2000 gallons) each on 500sqm test plots were made at a forest site underlain by permafrost near Fairbanks, Alaska. The oil spills, one in w...

This study was conducted to determine the short- and long-term physical, chemical and biological effects of spills of hot Prudhoe Bay crude oil on permafrost terrain near Fairbanks, Alaska. Two experimental oil spills, one in winter and one in summer, of 7570 liters (2000 gallons) were made at a forest site. The winter-spill oil moved within the su...

This study was conducted on the short-term effects of seasonal spills of hot Prudhoe Bay crude oil on microorganisms in a taiga soil in interior Alaska. Following a winter spill, the filamentous fungal populations were inhibited whereas the heterotrophic bacterial populations were stimulated. After a summer spill there was an initial depression of...

Total coliform (TC), fecal coliform (FC), and fecal streptococcus (FS) survival characteristics, under natural conditions at 0 degrees C in an ice-covered river, were examined during February and March 1975. The membrane filter (MF) technique was used throughout the study, and the multiple-tube (MPN) method was used in parallel on three preselected...

Includes bibliographical references (p. 138-146). NRELTRaa100249 MARCXML IBP