EVALUATION OF INDIGENOUS CLIMATE LITERACY STEM CAMP AND MEASURING STUDENT IMPACT (Invited Presentation)

Methodology: This Indigenous STEM camp’s programming encompasses best practices for improving math and science learning by Native American students. Best practices include cultural context, relevance, a holistic approach that considers the entire student, involvement of the community, family, and elders, communal learning environment, and involvement of problem or world-based activities. Involving all six elements of best practice and enlisting students to ask and answer real research questions, this program has clear relevance and impacts students and their communities by providing an opportunity for Native American student researchers to integrate traditional knowledge from their families, elders, and the broader tribal community with climate change science.

Place-based assessment methods of the Indigenous STEM camp programming underscores the importance and supports the relationship between the researchers (i.e. program administrators, elders, teachers, etc.) and the student subjects in describing the impact of the Indigenous STEM camp programming’s process and outcomes. Evaluation measures include 1) Student place-based, annual, pre and post climate change posters that provide data on the impact the camp has on student climate change literacy; 2) Continuous process measure utilizing listening session outcomes to ensure monthly camp programming is improving based on researchers monthly observations; 3) Continuous Check &

Connect sessions provide an individualized evaluation platform for researchers and student subjects to teacher SMART goal setting, yield longitudinal student academic and behavioral data, and foster one-on-one relationship building between researchers and student subjects; and 4) continuous presentation rubric that provides a consistent and individualized student subject evaluation tool that yields longitudinal data on the impact of camp programming on presentation skills, climate change literacy, and student incorporation of Ojibwe traditional knowledge and newly acquired scientific climate change knowledge.