This case study examines how we might advance inclusive models of science communication while working with youth at a sustainability science and code education day camp focused on sustainable design. Over the course of a single day, our middle school participants tour and inquire into sustainable design sites, gather data, and work with HTML code templates to create online science communication documents they can share with others. This research introduces a dialogic communication framework that helps our participants structure and communicate their thinking. We hope our efforts demonstrate how and why we might leverage inclusive communication models, multimodal tools, and the available means of persuasion to center youth in the communication of sustainable design.
What is sustainable design? That's the question we want our youth participants to spend the day working through. The architect Jason F. McLennan (2004) defined sustainable design as "a design philosophy that seeks to maximize the quality of the built environment, while minimizing or eliminating negative impact to the natural environment" (p. 4). But even McLennan was quick to point out both the problem of defining and the misuse of sustainability-related terms. We want our youth participants to understand sustainable design as a practice, one that requires another set of questions and sub-questions to language, enact, interpret, and maintain. These questions, what we refer to as the Sustainable Design Dialogic Communication Framework, are geared towards unconcealing the context of a specific sustainable design act. These questions include but are not limited to the following: What is it and what does it do? How does it work? What is the impact? and What should we do next? or How can we do it better?
The practice of sustainable design requires a synthesis of multiple knowledges and methods best interpreted through the study of sustainability science, an area of research that studies the relationship between humans and nature in order to develop and implement solutions to sustainability problems (Kates et al., 2001). Early contributors like Anthony J. McMichael et al. (2003) argued that environmental problems are due largely to human factors, stemming from resource imbalances, poor market choices, and ignorance, and thus require fields outside of the environmental sciences, including geography, economics, and epidemiology, among others, to prioritize environmental issues in their discourse and collaborate across disciplines on sustainable solutions. Because the field emerged from conversations around sustainable development, it has long sought to operationalize knowledge; however, early contributors to the field disagreed on a particular strategy. David W. Cash et al. (2003), for example, imagined science and technology experts as thought leaders: facilitating relationships with decision makers, translating scientific knowledge, and mediating disputes with those who might interfere with policy action. Others, like William C. Clark and Nancy M. Dickinson (2003), advocated for bottom-up approaches, using place-based methods informed by local knowledges and perspectives.
Today, the field of sustainability science includes a wide range of natural scientists, social scientists, and even humanities scholars, working collaboratively to solve problems related to environmental sustainability (Jerneck et al., 2011). Sustainability science adopts a social–ecological systems approach to understanding human and nature interaction as networked and occurring within and across local, regional, and global scales (Fischer et al., 2015). A social–ecological systems approach also interprets environmental sustainability solutions as inextricably linked to issues of equity and social justice (Leach et al., 2010). It is the task of sustainability science to recognize and synthesize different knowledge systems, especially Indigenous knowledge, and translate this knowledge into mutually agreed upon sustainability best practices and policy (Tengö et al., 2017). In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013) shared an example of such knowledge, the Indigenous concept of reciprocity, defined as the equitable and just giving and taking of only what one needs. To do so, she related how this concept is enacted both in nature and in Indigenous cultures across species and contexts. And while she provided a surplus of scientific evidence explaining the benefits of this concept, she cautioned us that at this moment in time, "it is not more data that we need ... but more wisdom" (p. 345). In addition to aligning "wisdom" with policy and practice, institutions of higher education can advance sustainability goals through incentivizing industry partners, grant funding, and community outreach (Berchin et al., 2021).
Inclusive models of science communication introduce a "rhetoric of civil discourse" that shapes our understanding of scientific knowledge and our ability to enact ethical and just environmental policy (Simmons, 2007) and can thus factor prominently in achieving the action-oriented goals of sustainability science (Lindenfeld et al., 2012). Universities working towards sustainable design goals have similarly benefited from such models. Serena Carpenter et al. (2016) discussed the role inclusive models can play on university campuses to raise the profile of sustainability initiatives and better align messaging across organizations. Other research has looked at the role of student and community outreach in developing learning partnerships (O'Brien & Sarkis, 2014), opportunities for discourse (Bilodeau et al., 2014), and trust (Nejati et al., 2015). This case study explores the use of a "tour" as one such method for raising community awareness around sustainable design initiatives across our university campus. While lecture-based tours have been used in the same context on college campuses (Trahan et al., 2017), our model favors a decentered, inquiry-based approach more in line with the work of Spring Gillard and Rob VanWynsberghe (2021). In doing so, we introduce the Sustainable Design Dialogic Communication Framework, a rhetorical tool that helps our participants structure their inquiry during the tour and later to communicate their findings to others using HTML code templates. Like sustainability science, working with HTML requires a synthesis of knowledge, tools, and methods to promote experimentation and learning. Working with our HTML templates challenges students to organize data, construct arguments, and consider how an audience will engage their multimodal science communication document. While these practices could provide meaningful learning experiences for learners of any age, this outreach centers youth in the communication of science and seeks to provide opportunities for youth to learn specialized skills and form knowledge, agency, and identities related to sustainable science.
Landscape rendering with details for some of the 6,200 plants incorporated into the Bigelow Boulevard Sustainable Design Project at the University of Pittsburgh.
Over the last 30 years, the field of science communication, aided by social epistemic theory and ethnographic methods, has come to understand the public's scientific knowledge and interests in greater complexity (Burns et al., 2003), as more "active, knowledgeable, playing multiple roles, receiving as well as shaping science" (Einsiedel, 2007, p.5). This is not to say that in the years since, the traditional deficit model which centers on scientists and their discourse has been wholly upended (Trench, 2008), or that scientists play a diminished role in the formation of scientific knowledge (Cortassa, 2016) or public policy (Simis et al., 2016). Rather, what can be claimed, is that our understanding of what constitutes science communication has broadened. For example, Massimiano Bucchi and Brian Trench (2021) theorized science communication along a continuum of modes, models, and applications ranging from exclusive to inclusive: On one end, they located the aforementioned deficit model and other top-down approaches, and on the other, bottom-up participatory models encouraging the public to take part in both the formation and communication of scientific knowledge through activities like citizen science. Between these poles, they placed dialogic models meant to engage the public in inquiry, discussion, and deliberation. To further their aims, the authors called on science communicators to examine the injustice and inequity inherent in these models, but also their efficacy "in terms of how, and how much, a given practice or set of practices stimulate wider conversation" (p. 9). For strategic, ethical, and legal reasons, science communicators should likewise consider, where do our youth fit on such a continuum?
There are many reasons why we should prioritize youth in inclusive models of science communication. We should start by recognizing that children have a powerful ability to influence one another in areas of science participation (Breakwell & Beardsell, 1992) and environmental activism (Wallis & Loy, 2021). Children also have the ability to influence adults, as demonstrated by the "Greta Thunberg Effect," the eponymous phenomenon relating how individuals of various ages are more likely to participate in collective action against climate change after having heard Thunberg's message (Sabherwal et al., 2021). Science communicators have also recognized youths' ability to leverage social media, especially around issues related to environmental justice. Francesca Belotti et al. (2022) documented how youth climate activists master a range of social media tools and tailor messages for specific users, building networks out of disparate nodes to achieve a variety of organizational, educational, and political goals related to climate action. Recognizing this skill, some scholars believe scientists should work more directly with youth to create social media messaging, build consensus, and deliver policy targets (Eide & Kunelius, 2021). Eszter Hargittai et al. (2018) have similarly shown that youth play an especially large role in circulating scientific discourse in social media environments simply by liking and replying to science related conversations. Science communication digital content strategy is especially important in the area of environmental sciences, where attitudes about the environment range widely and the communication medium can play an important role in whether or not an individual chooses to listen (Bolin & Hamilton, 2018).
Our participants did not find any pollinators at a rooftop garden specifically designed to attract pollinators.
Taking a different line of argument, Matteo Merzagora and Tricia Jenkins (2013) saw the inclusion of children in the communication of science as an ethical imperative in that children will pay the greatest price for our unsustainable policies and practices. They challenged science communicators to develop new dialogic models of science communication that center youth and their own exigencies as they relate to environmental science and policy. "Through such an approach, science in the perception of young people can indeed become a tool to design a world as close as possible to the world in which they would like to live, rather than external knowledge that a child just needs to learn in order to live in whatever world is proposed to him or her" (Merzagora & Jenkins, 2013, p. 3). Still, other science communicators emphasize the legal reasons for doing so. Elizabeth Welty and Laura Lundy's (2013) "voice model for involving youth in decision making" cited the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), which codified a child's right to "scientific and technical knowledge" (Article 28) and the right to form and "express ... views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child" (Article 12). The Convention further stated, "The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice" (Article 13). Working from these first principles, Welty and Lundy (2013) advocated for the empowerment of our youth as active participants in shaping policies and practices that affect their lives and underscore the pivotal role of science education and communication methods in this process. Every child, they argued, has a right to the following:
Following Welty and Lundy's voice model, this research adopts a hybrid approach to creating an inclusive science communication experience for our youth participants that includes spaces for dialogic inquiry, tools for voicing this knowledge, and opportunities for children to circulate their findings to an audience, and thus the opportunity to influence policy.
The Bigelow Boulevard Sustainable Design Project includes bike lanes, a crosswalk, and rain gardens.
A sociocultural approach to knowledge formation emphasizes the dynamic interaction between individuals and their cultural and social contexts in the construction and transmission of knowledge. Rooted in the early 20th-century work of Lev Vygotsky (1978) and his theory of sociocultural development, this theory perceives knowledge as coconstructed through social interactions within specific cultural settings. It recognizes that individuals are not passive recipients of knowledge but active participants in its creation and dissemination. Per Linell (2009) noted that this active participation, what we refer to as dialogic communication, relates to how human beings make sense of the world through "meaning making activities that are mediated in and through language, words, signs, symbols, or concepts" (p. 4). Thus, dialogic science communication seeks to bridge the gap between experts and the public through both the communication and formation of scientific knowledge. However, the dialogic model of science communication does not occur in a specific moment in space and time. Rather, we should, as researchers and interlocutors, understand it as inherently complex, yet fecund and captious. As Bridie McGreavy et al. (2015) argued, "Approaching communication as a complex system means that our interventions are always incomplete because human interactions are recursively guided by context-specific structures and processes that are always in a state of becoming" (p. 9). The complexity of human dialogue requires iteration; interlocutors must engage with and consider the knowledge and perspectives of others and reassert or reorganize their thinking based on a given exchange. Dialogic communication, as an active communication strategy, also requires a great deal of effort and accountability from all parties. Participants and organizations engaged in dialogue must yield control while opening themselves to uncertain outcomes and other risks (Kent & Taylor, 2002). Dialogic communication models have proven their value in the context of working with youth: Kristen Marcell et al. (2004) have demonstrated that youth are more likely to internalize and act on environmental knowledge through dialogic models than from diffusion models. Importantly, researchers have also demonstrated the benefits of using inclusive models in diverse settings working with populations from different places, backgrounds, and religions (Wegerif et al., 2013).
Dialogic science communication theory and methods naturally overlap with research in the field of education, which focuses more narrowly on how learners actively engage with both instructors and peers through meaningful dialogue. Some of this research focuses both on teacher-centered learning spaces where science instructors use inquiry to bridge cognitive divides (Mortimer & Scott, 2003), decenter authority (Scott & Ametller, 2007), and assess student knowledge (Mercer et al., 2009), while others favor the dialogic as a means of empowering students, giving each the tools to initiate and facilitate meaningful dialogue on their own. Rosalind Driver et al. (2000), for example, presented the case for teaching argument to promote scientific norms in the secondary science classroom. Rather than presenting a narrow view of argument as "debate," these researchers were concerned with the logical arrangement of statements they said mirrors how scientists, themselves, construct knowledge. Driver et al. centered Stephen Toulmin's (1958/2003) research on argumentation patterns occurring in natural language to explain how argument functions in science as an individual and collective act, taking many forms including written and spoken discourse. In addition to helping students understand the social epistemic nature of science, these researchers believed argument prepares students for civic engagement. However, they cautioned that the use of argument in the science classroom does not necessarily assist students in assessing the value of actual scientific data. Here, they seem to be saying that teaching argumentation is no substitute for the kinds of critical thinking skills needed to analyze, assess, and communicate data. Later researchers like Sibel Erduran et al. (2004) would employ Toulmin more strategically by prescribing Toulmin Argument Patterns (TAP) as rhetorical tools students can use to (1) analyze and structure scientific arguments and (2) engage the ideas of others through "dialogical argumentation." In the latter case, individual students were asked to debate positions with a partner, making sure to acknowledge and incorporate their interlocutor's argument within their own by way of rebuttal. Both Erduran et al. and the later work of Stan Frijters et al. (2008) demonstrated that debate strategies requiring students to take a specific position on an issue can prove highly effective in building critical thinking skills and science knowledge in youth. However, the latter study also warns of its overuse, in that debate can require a great deal of energy on the part of students. Frijters et al.'s research found that the more students engaged in debate, the less they liked it as a method of instruction.
In addition to taking photographs, students used digital tools to look up and record plant names like these black-eyed Susans.
This sustainable design case study is similarly interested in using argument as a tool to structure dialogic engagement but less interested in defining argument as adversarial or debate oriented. Because of the exploratory, cocreative nature of our project, we see the value of using stasis theory as a tool for both guiding inquiry and structuring argument. A range of ancient rhetoricians contributed to stasis theory and its application from Aristotle and Hermagoras in Ancient Greece to Cicero and Quintilian in Ancient Rome (Crowley & Hawhee, 1999). Modern rhetoricians have similarly addressed the use of stasis theory in science (Fahnestock & Secor, 1988) and engineering (Lane, 2022) education contexts. This latter research suggested stasis theory can equip students with a "framework of critical analysis [that] can help to turn a host of conflicting claims and multiple uncertainties into an ordered process of problem solving" (p. 3). Greek stasis theory involves four questions, that of: conjecture (What happened?), definition (What is it?), quality (What are the implications?), and policy (What should we do next?). Janet Davis (1996) argued that stasis theory provides a valuable tool for inquiring into a topic (judicial rhetoric), making judgements (epideictic rhetoric), and forming policy (deliberative rhetoric). This case study similarly explores how we might adapt and apply stasis theory as a dialogic communication tool for promoting inquiry in the field and constructing knowledge in deliberative workshop spaces.
Data collection and analysis figure prominently in the first three questions of Greek stasis theory, thsoe of conjecture, definition, and quality. These first three questions also figure in the work of John Dewey (1910), who understood human beings as innately curious for knowledge and thus predisposed to do the work of science. Dewey, and the empiricists who followed him, believed that individuals learn best observing, testing, and reasoning through direct engagement with scientific phenomena (pp. 68–72). In that humans are innately curious, "All knowledge, all science, thus aims to grasp the meaning of objects and events" (p. 117). It is no wonder that later constructivist methods, especially with their focus on inquiry and problem-solving, find their origins in Dewey's work (Johnston, 2013). Crowd sourcing apps like Cornell Bird Lab, iNaturalist, and Seek try to harness this same curiosity, inviting the user to investigate nature and even collaborate in the data collection process. In the case of iNaturalist, the app affords user location data sharing, media file uploads, and forums to share "observations" in significant detail. While many researchers see digital apps as a tool for democratizing science through coproduction (Ciasullo et al., 2019), others note that not all crowd sourcing apps contribute significantly to the formation of environmental knowledge (cf. Sturm et al., 2018). Tools that afford users the ability to analyze their data, especially in relation to other user data, will do the most to allow individuals to make judgements and form knowledge (Roche et al., 2020). However, while these apps may help their users build environmental knowledge, they do not necessarily afford users any direct opportunity to turn knowledge into action. This case study is thus interested in the fourth question of stasis, that of policy, helping our participants think about the question, What should we do next? While we see our participants' understanding of policy emerging in the field, we imagine it will solidify in the workshop space where they work alongside one another building their science communication document.
Watercolor detail of bee. Both the importance of pollinators and the declining bee population were important points of discussion on our sustainability tour.
"Exploring Sustainable Design" is an offshoot of My Nature Outing, a nature and code education summer day camp for local youth held at different park and recreation centers around the city of Pittsburgh. My Nature Outing's existing project architecture and administration proved essential to the implementation of this case study. Over 4 years, My Nature Outing has developed a network of partnerships with organizations around Pittsburgh and has realized grant funding to finance technology and pay staff. The program works with a variety of partners including park rangers, nature center educators, and community center managers. We are also supported by office staff, grant coordinators, graduate and undergraduate research assistants, and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh. Without this labor, technology, and the knowledge gained over four years of programming, this case study would not have been possible.
"Nothing before had made me thoroughly realize that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them."
— Darwin (qtd. in Dewey, 1910, p. 127)
The inquiry and data collection portion of this case study involved stops at a variety of sustainable design sites at the University of Pittsburgh including green roofs, rain gardens, pollinator gardens, vegetable gardens, a community bicycle repair and rental shop, a used clothing boutique, and a food pantry. Participant data collection involved taking photographs at each location to document and conducting audio interviews with other participants. To facilitate dialogic engagement, we developed the Sustainable Design Dialogic Communication Framework based on the four questions of Greek stasis theory: those of conjecture, definition, quality, and policy.
We also prepared six project data sheets with relevant site information (history, scope, capacity, and when available, project cost) sourced from university websites, press releases, and news articles. These project sheets are meant to supplement participant inquiry, not replace it. For example, when discussing the purpose of a pollinator garden during one of our stops, we could share scientific data stating that 75%–95% of all the earth's plants need pollination to reproduce (Ollerton et al., 2011), and that currently, 40% of invertebrate pollinator species are facing extinction (Potts et al., 2017). Likewise, when our participants visited a 200-year-old tree on campus, we shared the fact that the university has some 4,000 trees and 30 acres of tree canopy on our urban campus, with plans to enlarge the canopy 50% by 2030 (University of Pittsburgh, n.d.).
After the inquiry and data collection, participants returned to the classroom to build their science communication documents by working with an HTML template and project files hosted on a GitHub repository. While we could use more user-friendly digital publishing tools, our research demonstrates that youth can, through pattern recognition and decomposition, quickly learn what the code in a code template is doing and how to modify it, adding text and linking project assets. In addition to the HTML file, the GitHub project repository contains a project README, placeholder images, an audio file, a style sheet, and an MIT software license. Once participants download the project and open the project using a text editor, they can edit the file and manage project files by following embedded code comments. The software design follows principles of basic coding pedagogy (Quigley, 2022) designed to facilitate the goals of developing coding literacy (Vee, 2017), computational thinking (Wing, 2006), and basic computer science knowledge. The CSS is built on the Open Fuego CSS framework, a modular codebase that allows users to quickly develop content using code snippets housed in a code repository within the HTML document. The software is open-source and MIT-licensed, allowing others interested in sustainability tours or code education to examine the document or use the code in their own research.
Coding with others in a workshop space constitutes a deliberative practice where participants work side-by-side, formulating arguments, incorporating data, and constructing meaning. By working directly with code, our participants learn specialized skills and strategies for multimodal composing that develop confidence and a sense of agency. Sherry Turkle and Seymour Papert (1990) showed that through engaged pedagogies, especially making activities, students who may not be predisposed to learning computer science actually enjoy a wider ingress into the field. Richard Sennett (2012) similarly recognized the potential for creative synergy in the shared workshop space and its potential for a dialogic response. That is, in that a workshop might be a place where different theories and methods are practiced alongside one another, the workshop can foster an environment for creativity that would not be possible if individuals worked independent of one another. Like Marcus Bussey et al. (2023), we hope to develop "communicative praxis" for our workshop space "as a platform for joint construction of meaning around sustainability practices as well as for co-creation of knowledge and practices that could enhance our capability to act and navigate wicked sustainability issues" (p. 50).
This sustainable design project can filter up to 10,000 gallons of water from the common area above it.
Hardware and software choices play an important role in the success of any digital praxis. Our program owns 15 Lenovo Chromebook Duet 2-in-1 laptop computers. This computer consists of a tablet with an 8-megapixel front-facing camera (no zoom function) and a removable keyboard. For data collection, participants used the tablet only, housed in a protective jelly case. For their interviews, students attached a small external USB-C type microphone to significantly enhance audio capture. When participants returned from data collection and were ready to code, they could easily remove the protective case and add a keyboard and tablet stand. Using a single computer for data collection and coding solves a number of problems that can occur, including file transfer issues between devices. It's also possible to complete this project on an iPad or any mobile phone running iOS, Android, or Google operating systems. In our case, because the majority of our participants already used Chromebooks in schools, our process reduces technology onboarding. In terms of applications, we used the default camera application, default image editor, an MP3 audio recorder, and Code Pad Text Editor.
Changing security protocols and emerging or discontinued technologies continually force changes to our teaching practices. While most of our participants already had Google accounts through their local school districts, school accounts often forbid downloading unauthorized applications. As a workaround, each of our Chromebooks had pre-installed apps and a unique Google ID and password our staff controls. Our practices working with GitHub have also changed. For many of our participants, our camp is their first introduction to GitHub file sharing and hosting. During our program's first two years, participants returned home with GitHub accounts, a project repository, and a website URL hosted on GitHub Pages. However, new two-factor safety protocols make this nearly impossible for our participants. We continue to host our participant project files on GitHub, but do so as sub-directories within our own GitHub organization.
To get started, participants went to our project repository and followed the steps on our project README. Once they downloaded the project files to their local computer, they could move the files to a stable place in their local files. From here, participants were ready to add their own assets to the project folder and edit files using a text editor. All of the directions for working with code were embedded as code comments within the index.html document. As a group, we read through several sections of code to help participants get started working with code (decomposing code and recognizing patterns). As they gained confidence, we encouraged them to work together to complete their science communication document. When participants finished, we collected their project folder using a USB flash drive and added it to a dedicated GitHub repository custom built for each camp. The repository consisted of a root directory site and sub-directories organized by participants' first names. Each participant project was added to its own unique sub-directory, which made sharing project URLs very simple. Adding a USB flash drive to our workflow proved useful in other ways. When internet access fails, we could run our camp offline using a USB-C flash drive to share files in both directions.
This case study assessment examines participants' ability to apply the Sustainable Design Dialogic Communication Framework as a tool for conducting inquiry, building knowledge, and constructing their science communication document.
G1: Participants will use the Sustainable Design Dialogic Communication Framework to inquire into and form arguments related to sustainable design.
G2: Participants will develop a working definition of sustainable design and a methodology for asking questions, gathering data, communicating their findings, and influencing others.
G3: Participants will understand local sustainable design sites as part of a larger networked approach to addressing environmental problems.
G4: Participants will see the connections between social justice and environmental justice.
G5: Participants will learn basic coding skills and follow best practices to communicate their findings.
We assessed our project using notes detailing our formal assessment in the field and by examining each participant's science communication documents. We also gathered data from parents about perceived changes in their child's interests/attitudes about sustainable design and the impact these activities had on others, including friends and family.
The project recruited a small test group of six middle school participants, half of what we usually attract. Most of the youth recruited for this project had at least one parent affiliated with the university and some familiarity with the campus. One undergraduate research assistant worked with me (Stephen) to greet participants, verify parent contacts, assist with the inquiry and data collection, and, later, help debug participant code problems. The camp began in a classroom space. While participants trickled in, we put them to work making name tags and coloring in sustainability-themed coloring books. Once all of our participants had arrived, we made introductions and discussed our goals for the day. Participants next downloaded the project template from GitHub and learned about the kinds of sites we would visit and the kinds of data we would collect. Before heading to the field, we spent time discussing our Chrome apps and photography technique.
We introduced the Sustainable Design Dialogic Communication Framework at our first sustainable design site, a monocultured lawn situated in a courtyard flanked by two large engineering buildings. The following example is meant to demonstrate how we encouraged inquiry and dialogic communication using the framework:
"We're standing on our first sustainable design site, but what exactly is it and what does it do?" Our participants understood the site to be a lawn, and they expressed that the lawn was nice amid so much concrete. But what makes it sustainable? How does it work? With more prompting, they recognized the lawn's ability to retain water, and better than the alternative—more concrete. Our participants also reasoned that the lawn must provide a place for participants to relax and study, and they thought that contributed to its sustainability. When the discussion died, we encouraged our participants to partner up and use photography to explore the design space more closely, especially the design in relation to the other spaces with which it connects. Soon after, one of our participants came running back to us shouting, "We're on a roof!" That was true. This new information led us back to our second question: How does it work? Participants understood that green roofs were cooler and would retain more water than a standard roof. Next, we asked, Why was this important? Less runoff. From our project data sheet we also learned that while green roofs are more expensive on the front end, they last longer and have fewer maintenance costs over the life of the roof. Could we design it better? No. Our participants liked it the way it was. What about the bees? We brought up the fact that the pesticides used to maintain monocultures are not good for bees and other pollinators. Participants considered these concerns, but insisted that while they liked bees, they really liked the monocultured lawn and wished that the university had more such lawns covering other rooftops that students could access.
(We repeated the process at the other sustainable design sites, returning to the Sustainable Design Dialogic Communication Framework and referring to the project data sheets to supplement the group's knowledge.)
View anonymous versions of our participants' science communication documents. Names are pseudonyms. Shared with permission.
Over the course of the walk, we noticed that participants learned to anticipate the kinds of questions we were asking by providing analysis and commentary to those questions with little to no prompting. Over the course of the inquiry and data collection, we noticed a few other trends in our dialogue with participants that we will relate in the discussion.
Participants possessed prior knowledge of local and global environmental issues. Participants demonstrated a complex understanding of local issues including the need to mitigate wastewater and address our city's wastewater infrastructure problems. They also understood how our water pollution contributed to larger problems downstream and in the ocean.
Participants understood sustainable design as an integrated solution involving a variety of design features like recycling and composting bins, bicycle infrastructure, permeable surfaces, rain gardens, trees, and a robust tree canopy.
Participants did not balk at the high cost of sustainable design projects. As an example, we shared that the university spent 23.7 million dollars to complete a large sustainable design project that reduced traffic from four lanes to two in a high pedestrian area, added bike lanes, rain gardens, permeable surfaces, and 6,200 plantings. Participants thought the money well spent and liked the fact that it continued to serve all users.
Participants were troubled when designs were neglected or appeared to fail. For example, we visited a series of pollinator gardens located around one of our campus buildings. Some of these sites were well maintained and others were not. During the visit, participants learned about the declining bee population in the United States, gathered data on plants that attracted pollinators, and learned about the efficacy of bee houses designed to attract pollinators; however, participants were troubled that they did not see any pollinators at these designated sites and wanted more plant density and consistent care. (Note: We did see plenty of bees and wasps later in our tour.)
Participants were hopeful that more attention to sustainable design would bring improvements to the environment. Participants were largely optimistic about the future. However, they wanted to see adults do more.
Our youth participants loved Thriftsburgh, a student-run clothing reuse store at the University of Pittsburgh.
Returning to the classroom, participants began adding, organizing, and naming image assets in their project folder. Participants also wrote interview questions and conducted interviews with one another, and then we took lunch. We dedicated 2 full hours in the afternoon to working with the code templates. As our participants finished their projects, we uploaded them to our GitHub repository. Finally, at the end of our workshop time, we asked participants to make a short presentation sharing their science communication document with the larger group.
| James | Linda | Robert | Dawn | William | Thomas | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bike Reuse Shop or Bike Infrastructure | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| Pollinator Gardens | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| Rain gardens | X | X | X | X | X | |
| Clothing Reuse Shop | X | X | X | |||
| Trees | X | X | ||||
| Ramps | X | |||||
| Green Roof | X |
During qualitative analysis, we used a priori codes related to our project goals which allowed us to look for patterns across participant work.
G1: Participants will use the Sustainable Design Dialogic Communication Framework to inquire into and form arguments related to sustainable design.
The science communication document provided participants with four content areas in which to use the Sustainable Design Dialogic Communication Framework. All participants effectively used stasis theory in at least one case. Four of the six participants employed stasis theory in most cases. One participant was unable to discuss policy in all but one case. Another participant lacked quality and policy in most cases. We found that the available data from the audio interviews correlated with these outcomes. Participants who could effectively use stasis theory in written form were also able to include aspects of stasis theory in their responses to sustainability-related questions. Four participants cited data from project data sheets and one participant used data in another instance. Participant examples include, "The Arbor Day Foundation report that trees can reduce 2–4 degrees Fahrenheit," and "It is important because 75–90% of greens come from pollinators and without them we basically wouldnt have most vegetables or flowers or fruits" (sic). Along with expected spelling challenges, participants also made errors in their arguments. One participant misunderstood the purpose of rain gardens, thinking they filtered water for drinking while another mislabeled content headings.
G2: Participants will develop a working definition of sustainable design and a methodology for asking questions, gathering data, communicating their findings, and influencing others.
We were interested in individual participants' ability to language the meaning of sustainable design. Obviously, participants demonstrated an implicit understanding of sustainable design through the projects they choose to showcase, but we were interested in learning if they could do so more explicitly within their science communication document. In the template, we wrote the heading: "What is sustainable design? What does it do? How does it work? Why is it important? How can we increase interest in sustainable design?" We even gave explicit HTML code comments asking participants to address the prompt. However, only two responded to the code comment prompt. Here are the results:
"Sustainable design is work/designs that help the world. It basically makes the world a better place by making helpful designs. It's important to help keep the world stable. We can increase interest by spreading the word and making more designs worldwide."
"Sustainable design are designs that are efficient and has a important purpose. We should share sustainable designs all over the world to help and improve places."
G3: Participants will understand local sustainable design sites as part of a larger networked approach to addressing environmental problems.
Rain gardens, bees, and bicycle infrastructure figured prominently in these responses. Participants were able to understand the multiple benefits of such projects. As Linda pointed out, "[rain gardens] use excess rainwater but to also provide pollinating insects more plants." William added, "[rain gardens] collect rain water so that the large amount of it doesn't go into the sewer system, flood it, and pollute the rivers. Then that polluted water would go into the rivers and contaminate them and the things that live in them." James wanted to scale up pollinator gardens on a global scale to maximize global impact. "There are many gardens in the world and it would be easy to turn those into pollinator gardens which are better for the economy all around." For the participants, bicycle infrastructure provided another turnkey solution. As Dawn put it, "Bicycles are a healthy form of transportation that's good for the environment, and for you. Instead of using a car which produces carbon dioxide and heats up our planet, a bike won't harm our planet and is an easy way to get some excersize [sic]. If more bike lanes are made and everyone is given easy access to trails, the world could be much healthier."
G4: Students will see the connections between social justice and environmental justice.
Participants readily understood that sustainable design connects with issues of equity. James shared that ramps were his favorite sustainable design project: "They are so easy to make and are so useful. It makes it easier for handicapped people to move up and people with baby strollers as well." Several participants discussed the clothing reuse shop and bike reuse shop as sustainable design projects that provide equitable solutions for people in need. As Robert pointed out: "This is beneficial to students who need transport but do not have enough money to afford more expensive bikes." William was especially enthusiastic about bikes. Here is his unedited argument: "The more people we get riding bike, the less air polution we have in the world. Also bikes are fun. We could make biking even more efficiant by adding more bike lanes througout the streets so that their are less accidents" (sic). Dawn discussed rain gardens as a sustainable design project with implications for social justice. She argued that rain gardens "stop the flooding that could damage buildings or hurt people," and reasoned, "Building more rain gardens would be helpful to stop flooding or harm." William mentioned the benefits of tree canopy, citing data to support his argument around increasing tree density in urban areas: "More people die from heat stroke than from cold exposure each year."
G5: Students will learn basic coding skills and follow best practices to communicate their findings.
After assessing content, we turned our focus towards issues of usability, accessibility, and privacy best practices. Throughout the day, we discussed such concerns with participants both explicitly and through HTML code comments embedded in the webtext. All participants were attentive to one another's privacy when taking photographs. However, none of our participants resized image assets during post production. Reducing image size decreases load time which improves accessibility. In fact, the original project file with all six projects used 322MB of space. Only one participant added alt text, which was another initiative we addressed explicitly both orally and in HTML code comments. We made these document adjustments prior to publication of this webtext. One participant chose to complete the document in their own creative way using a GIF in their hero image and a marquee function for most of their paragraph text content. Both choices present accessibility concerns for neurodiverse users and usability issues for all users.
We were also interested in understanding parent perspectives on both their children's science communication documents and the discussions that may have occurred between parents and children following our camp. In thinking about Amy E. Booth et al.'s (2020) research on the benefits of science conversations between parents and children on children's attitudes towards science, we were interested in the capacity for this case study as a "backpack approach" to generate conversations between our participants and their parents. Parents were impressed by their children's science communication documents and especially by the fact that their children used text editors, HTML code templates, and file management to build their documents. The parents were also impressed by their children's ability to discuss their sustainable design document and emphasize the importance of sustainable design. All but one parent reported that their children's participation increased their own general interest in sustainability.
Sustainability initiatives should create learning experiences challenging youth to "examine their biases, beliefs, and values, be motivated to seek and assess that which is reasonable in forming new judgments, and construct new knowledge and understanding that serves them and others well for their future" (Seatter & Ceulemans, 2017, p. 63). This case study provides an example of how we might advance active learning experiences through inclusive models of science communication. Our case study demonstrated that participants benefited from our use of the Sustainable Design Dialogic Communication Framework to promote inquiry and dialogue during the data collection portion of our activities and to help participants construct their science communication documents. Like Spring Gillard and Rob VanWynsberghe (2021), we think sustainability tours with "active approach[es] to teaching and learning [are] more likely to give rise to self-motivated change agents who apply their learning to create change" (p. 52). This research contributes to these efforts by arguing the benefits of using stasis theory to promote inquiry and dialogue. We hope that other researchers will benefit from our inclusive science communication tools and strategies, including the Sustainable Design Dialogic Framework, our free and open-source code education templates, and our example of youth environmental science education and communication outreach.
This research project received grant funding from the University of Pittsburgh Office of the Provost's Year of Data and Society and from the University of Pittsburgh Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation.
