Module 4: Monitoring and Evaluation

Short Description:
Monitoring and Evaluation is the fourth module in this course, Building Sustainable Communities: The Impact of Engagement, and highlights research and real-world experiences on the subject of monitoring and evaluation (also referred to as M&E), in relation to sustainable community building. In the first lesson we will provide you with an overview of M&E, including origins and definitions, as well as its importance for building sustainable communities. In the next lesson, the spectrum of approaches to accomplish M&E is examined, specifically we look at two opposing ends of the spectrum: conventional and participatory M&E. In the third lesson we will focus on the use of citizen science as a mechanism for building sustainable communities. Here we define citizen science, develop an understanding of how it can be used in conventional or participatory M&E, and discuss innovative tools to support it. The final lesson covers the common benefits and challenges experienced across all M&E approaches, and surfaces key tensions surrounding M&E as a field of practice and research. By the conclusion of this module, it is our hope that you are beginning to see how these pieces along the path to building sustainable communities connect.

Word Count: 12027

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Module 1: Introduction to Community Engagement

Short Description:
Introduction to Community Engagement is the first module in this course, Building Sustainable Communities: The Impact of Engagement, and it will provide you with an introduction to sustainable communities and an in-depth look at community engagement. In lesson one we will define and discuss components of sustainable communities. Lesson two will provide you with an overview of how community engagement has evolved over time. While lesson three will highlight who is involved in community engagement and different ways to ethically engage with community actors. Lastly, lesson four discusses why engaging actors is essential to navigating current challenges confronting communities. Ultimately, this first module will provide you with the foundational learning required to navigate along the path through the remaining four modules.

Word Count: 6111

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In this class, concepts of building technology and experimental methods are studied, in class and in lab assignments. Projects vary yearly and have included design and testing of strategies for daylighting, passive heating and cooling, and improved indoor air quality via natural ventilation. Experimental methods focus on measurement and analysis of thermally driven and wind-driven airflows, lighting intensity and glare, and heat flow and thermal storage. Experiments are conducted at model and full scale and are often motivated by ongoing field work in developing countries.

Bumble Bee Watch is a Citizen Science Project provided through the partnerships of The Xerces Society, the University of Ottawa, Wildlife Preservation Canada, BeeSpotter, The Natural History Museum, London, and the Montreal Insectarium. This is a fun and interactive way that your students can contribute to the collection of scientific information about the friendly pollinator, the bumble bee! Join the team of volunteers to help track and learn!

A dissertação intitulada “Educação Científica: Guia Didático para elaboração de projetos sustentáveis no ensino das Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação”, objetiva desenvolver projetos mediante Feiras de Ciências, realizadas por estudantes da Educação Profissional da área das Tecnologias e da Informação e Comunicação, buscando soluções responsáveis frente às questões socioambientais. A questão de pesquisa a ser respondida neste trabalho é: Como fomentar a Educação Científica mediante Feiras de Ciências realizadas por estudantes da Educação Profissional da área das Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação de modo que possibilite aos estudantes a elaboração de projetos que busquem soluções responsáveis socioambientalmente? Esta pesquisa de abordagem quali-quantitativa toma como inspiração o estudo exploratório, descritivo e escolhe como caminho metodológico a pesquisa de campo no Centro Estadual de Educação Profissional em Lauro de Freitas/Bahia, entre os anos de 2017 e 2018. A fim de alcançar o objetivo da pesquisa, optou-se pelo desenvolvimento de metodologia própria, baseada na ênfase do protagonismo estudantil, que buscou impulsionar estudantes à participação em eventos científicos, como as Feiras de Ciências e Tecnologias. Os sujeitos envolvidos no processo da pesquisa foram os estudantes do Ensino Médio Profissional do Centro Estadual de Educação Profissional em Tecnologia da Informação e Comunicação – CEEP-TIC, localizado no município de Lauro de Freitas - Bahia. Apresentamos como produto educacional da pesquisa um Guia Didático para desenvolvimento de projetos sustentáveis no ensino das Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação e a demonstração dos resultados dos projetos apresentados nas Feiras de Ciências Escolares do referido Centro. A partir das análises das informações coletadas em campo, a pesquisa apontou que instigar à Educação Científica na Educação Profissional é uma ferramenta essencial na promoção da educação voltada para as resoluções de problemas práticos do dia a dia e, na formação do senso crítico dos estudantes, os ajudando a ir além do senso comum, em busca de soluções. A pesquisa aponta que as Feiras de Ciências Escolares são compreendidas como práticas pedagógicas formativas para promover a Educação Científica que substitui a ênfase na capacidade de fazer, comum na formação do estudante da escola técnica-profissionalizante, para a capacidade de prever eventos e solucionar problemas. Neste sentido, perspectivamos que este guia sirva de referência para que professores, estudantes e outras pessoas interessadas possam desenvolver atividades de iniciação científica ou de pesquisas, ou projetos socioambientais em suas escolas.

This video segment, from the 'Earth: The Operators' Manual' featuring climate expert Richard Alley, shows how ice cores stored at the National Ice Core Lab provide evidence that ancient ice contains records of Earth's past climate - specifically carbon dioxide and temperature.

This video is narrated by climate scientist Richard Alley. It examines studies US Air Force conducted over 50 years ago on the warming effects of CO2 in the atmosphere and how that could impact missile warfare. The video then focuses on the Franz Josef glacier in New Zealand; the glacier is used to demonstrate a glacier's formation, depth of snow fall in the past, and understand atmospheric gases and composition during the last Ice Age. Supplemental resources are available through the website.

There is growing body of evidence to support that students who directly experience authentic scientific research are more likely to continue onto advanced degrees and careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). In an effort to introduce more students to the benefits of scientific research we have drawn on an ongoing research project aimed at understanding how Corals Respond to the Environment (CRE) to develop an interdisciplinary laboratory course based on Authentic Research Experiences (ARE). A small cohort of undergraduate students enrolled in a semester-long course, entitled CREARE, perform biochemical experiments in the laboratory, analyze environmental data by R statistical software and prepared a report modeled after a research manuscript to present their work. The impact of CREARE on student learning gains and attitudes towards science is being measured, as is the impact of CREARE on participants' career choices and retention in STEM. This multidisciplinary research program addresses the impact of climate change on the health of a critically endangered coral species, ultimately leading to a better stewardship of this invaluable resource. Furthermore, CREARE offers a unique experience for students, one that may serve as a model for the development of more research-based courses, leading to improved retention in our STEM departments.

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C-ROADS is a simplified version of a climate simulator. Its primary purpose is to help users understand the long-term climate effects (CO2 concentrations, global temperature, sea level rise) of various customized actions to reduce fossil fuel CO2 emissions, reduce deforestation, and grow more trees. Students can ask multiple, customized what-if questions and understand why the system reacts as it does.

Short Description:
In this introductory book on CSR and Sustainability Communication, we discuss the evolution of the sustainability story in corporate, political, and environmental discourses as well as paradigms and theoretical approaches to better understand communication about, of and for sustainability. The textbook follows a strategic communication perspective and offers practical examples and exercises for making sustainability and related issues accessible and comprehensible, for co-creating social change. The book offers students and instructors as well as (future) communication strategists and campaigners foundations, strategies, tools and methodologies of sustainability communication to create a new story and take authorship for the new narrative. Furthermore, it attracts professionals, advocates, and academics who are passionate about taking proactive roles in restoratively addressing the pressing interrelated sociocultural and ecological issues if our times, to become reflexive leaders and advocates.

Long Description:
Over the last two decades, sustainability has become a widespread normative framework or regulatory idea – mostly communicated in a context of sustainable development and thus as ‘alternative to’ or ‘fight against climate change’. Sustainability is generally defined as the fact that a given activity or action is capable of being sustained and therefore continued, related to the responsibility for the future, meeting global needs, the protection of the environment, development and ecocultural consciousness as a deeper logic and matter of life, as well as participation and engagement. Thus, sustainability communication encompasses the relationship between humans and their environment and focuses on social discourses (Godemann at al., 2011). Here, a critical approach seems to be fruitful to grasp the largely amorphous concept of sustainability that gets bent into many different shapes in the public sphere (Weder et al., 2019a; 2021; Dimitrov, 2018).

For the introductory book at hand, we focus on the role of strategic communication in shaping sustainability as current narrative of our society in relation to the ‘old’ climate change narrative of destruction and imbalance between human and nature. Therefore, we conceptualize the evolution of the sustainability narrative as core process of strategic communication. We focus on organizations and their responsibility towards the society (Corporate Social Responsibility) and identify the potential of strategic communication for a transition of the old to the ‘new’ narrative.

After the clarification of the basic paradigms of Corporate Responsibility, Environmental and Social Governance, and Sustainability as normative framework and narrative of the future, we introduce the basic paradigms of communication, communication from a functional, rather instrumental and critical, social-constructivist perspective, before we focus on sustainability and CSR communication and related strategies and tactics of content-related, storytelling-focused communication management.

In this introductory book on CSR and Sustainability Communication, we discuss the evolution of the sustainability story in corporate, political, and environmental discourses as well as paradigms and theoretical approaches to better understand communication about, of and for sustainability. The textbook follows a strategic communication perspective and offers practical examples and exercises for making sustainability and related issues accessible and comprehensible, for co-creating social change. The book offers students and instructors as well as (future) communication strategists and campaigners foundations, strategies, tools and methodologies of sustainability communication to create a new story and take authorship for the new narrative. Furthermore, it attracts professionals, advocates, and academics who are passionate about taking proactive roles in restoratively addressing the pressing interrelated sociocultural and ecological issues if our times, to become reflexive leaders and advocates.

Word Count: 36013

ISBN: 978-1-74272-361-7

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Esse material didático é resultado das experiências do projeto de atuação na linha ambiente e sociedade do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Rede Nacional para o Ensino das Ciências Ambientais (PROFCIAMB), pela Universidade Federal do Amazonas (UFAM), tendo como base a dissertação “Abelhas nativas e educação ambiental: uma sequência didática interdisciplinar na formação do discente em agropecuária” que foi orientado pelo Prof. Dr. Neliton Marques da Silva.
Ele apresenta as sequências didáticas (SD’s) aplicadas junto a turma do 1º Ano do Curso Técnico de Nível Médio em Agropecuária na Forma Integrada, ofertados pelo IFAM campus Coari, com o objetivo de servir como um norteador para utilização das abelhas nativas sem ferrão como ferramenta educacional, especialmente na disciplina de ciências.

Sequence of laboratory activities to develop familiarity with geochemistry bench laboratory experimental methods; demonstration of different weathering rates of different Ca-bearing minerals; connection between minerals present in a system and nutrient (Ca) availability

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This in class activity allows students to calculate rates of change from graphs of glacial-interglacial temperatures and CO2 and modern temperatures and CO2.

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Short Description:
This book provides a brief introduction to the lives and work of Minnesota residents who advocate for Environmental Justice. Their stories were captured in interviews conducted by Macalester College students in Spring 2018, 2019 and 2020. The work featured in this volume covers a broad span, showcasing the depth and breadth of Environmental Justice. More importantly, this book celebrates the extraordinary everyday people who chose to take action in the face of injustice. While their approaches to Environmental Justice work are diverse, they are united in their persistence and their creativity.

Word Count: 84996

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Students conduct a greenhouse gas emission inventory for their college or university as a required part of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment.

Cancer is an everyday topic in the news and in most extended families. The types and treatment of cancers can be complex and confusing. Module 2 provides students with knowledge and resources concerning the development of cancers related to environmental factors. It is important for students to realize that the state-of-the-art of cancer treatment prior to 1986 (the year the trial started) is not the current state-of-the-art. Treatment of many types of cancer has progressed enormously due to medical research. Treatment of childhood leukemia is one of the success stories in cancer treatment. Research linking childhood leukemia to environmental factors or a specific environmental factor has progressed more slowly. Several links are provided within the website that students can read to become aware of environmental factors in Woburn that have been studied, including Woburn Chemical Industry, Woburn's Water Supply and Hematology of Leukemia. Several research articles are available for students to read and are cited within the searchable database at Bibliography & References.

Increased energy use per capita is linked to decreased poverty rates. Modest energy increases can lead to significant poverty reduction, but the relationship is not always linear. Factors like governance and social policies also influence poverty levels. Beyond a certain threshold, further energy increases have diminishing returns.

President Biden authorized the release of 180 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gasoline prices amid the Russia-Ukraine War. While previous releases had modest effects, the magnitude of this release is significant. Estimates suggest a reduction of $0.15 to $0.38 per gallon at the pump.

This video focuses on animals that have quickly evolved in order to meet their needs from the impacts of climate change.

The purpose of this exercise is to understand the capability and limitations of several instruments (AA, ICP-OES, ICP-MS) used for geochemical analysis. Students compare and contrast the cost, detection limits, etc. of these instruments.

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