SYMP 21-1 - Culturally relevant teaching: experiences from the Ecological Forecasting Initiative working with Latinx and Native-American students and teachers

The Ecological Forecasting Initiative (EFI) is an international grassroots effort to build and support an interdisciplinary community of people interested in near-term ecological forecasting. In the Education and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion working groups we work together to collect and develop resources for learning and teaching ecological forecasting, and related topics such as statistics and data science, keeping practices of inclusive, accessible and culturally relevant pedagogy in mind. We will share our experiences and perspectives working with students and professors of institutions that include those serving historically excluded communities of Native American and Latinx students.
We assessed the current availability and gaps in the availability of online and curricular material related to ecological forecasting and compiled inclusive pedagogy resources. We worked closely with collaborators to understand what resources and experiences their students need. We collaboratively developed online resources, teaching materials, and are developing materials for publication.
To date, we have compiled and made publicly available online materials related to data science, ecological forecasting, and inclusive pedagogy. During the past three years, 15 Minority-Service Institution students have tested these resources, participating in a semester-long mentoring program to learn about data science and ecological forecasting in preparation for summer research experiences. Two students went on to create aquatic forecasts for the NSF-sponsored, EFI NEON Ecological Forecasting Challenge, and a third student used modelling techniques learned during an NSF REU on Food, Energy and Water Systems. We have also designed a class module considering culturally relevant problems, such as the need for Tribes to have water quality reports to deliver to the Environmental Protection Agency. This module was presented at the Geoscience Alliance conference to an audience of primarily Native students and tribal members. Other projects developed by our group include a graphic overview of what ecological forecasting is, types of careers that use ecological forecasting, and recommendations of college courses students can take if they are interested in the field as well as infographics to support people teaching and learning R. We are currently working on a manuscript about teaching ethics in forecasting and a blog post addressing barriers to inclusivity in ecological forecasting.
We hope to spark a conversation regarding how teaching ecological subjects can be more inclusive and invite other people to join us and strengthen our community with their experiences.