DEVELOPING AN INITIAL THEORY OF CHANGE FOR THE EARTH SCIENCE EXPERIENTIAL AND INDIGENOUS LEARNING (EASEIL) PROJECT, A FACULTY AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

Intervention-based geoscience education projects that aim for change (at the individual level, at scale, or system-wide) require investigators to develop theory of change maps to unpack the relationality between variables in order to strengthen the trustworthiness of analysis and conclusions of intervention impacts (Reinholz and Andrews, 2020). Here we present the development of the theory of change for the Earth Science Experiential and Indigenous Learning (EaSEIL) project, a three-year science faculty and curriculum development initiative at the University of British Columbia (UBC; located in Canada). EaSEIL broadly seeks to support a group of UBC science instructors from multiple departments (n=20 in year one) to provide UBC students with increased opportunities for inclusive field-based science experiences, while also advancing UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan’s Call to Action to respectfully integrate Indigenous Knowledges, histories, contemporary perspectives, and ways of knowing into science courses. EaSEIL primarily supports faculty and curriculum development by engaging instructors in a formalized interdisciplinary community of practice (Wenger, 1991)--the broad intervention framework. This creates space for capacity building and transformation of practice through the creation of an expanded local peer network, as well as regular, situated opportunities for iterative individual and collaborative reflection, learning, and production–-a collection of specific, individually evidence-based interventions. In this presentation, we will share our project’s theory of change map, describing its key components and explaining the rationale behind its design, as well as providing a brief overview of how it will be used. This approach to mapping EaSEIL’s theory of change can be adapted by other researchers and administrators examining systematic change or conducting small-scale learning support intervention studies.