Source: CAL POLYTECHNIC STATE UNIV submitted to NRP
WRITING THE SCIENCE OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE – A TRANSDISCIPLINARY TEACHING MODEL
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1012025
Grant No.
2017-70003-26380
Cumulative Award Amt.
$139,597.00
Proposal No.
2016-07280
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Jun 1, 2017
Project End Date
May 31, 2021
Grant Year
2017
Program Code
[ER]- Higher Ed Challenge
Recipient Organization
CAL POLYTECHNIC STATE UNIV
(N/A)
SAN LUIS OBISPO,CA 93407
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Communicating the science of sustainability effectively requires the development of transdisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning. These approaches must emphasize reasoning and argumentation skills alongside quantitative methods of data collection and analysis in order to further the work of sustainable agriculture. In studying the intersections of scientific research and argumentation, California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) recognized the need to design an undergraduate curriculum that integrated disciplinary knowledge in these separate fields. By focusing on teaching the concept of "sustainable agriculture," this project addresses the need for students to develop both quantitative reasoning skills and rhetorical writing skills in agricultural science. To tackle these challenges, Cal Poly will conduct a 3-year project to improve students' quantitative, analytical, and communication skills by testing and implementing a pioneer transdisciplinary teaching framework. The project is a partnership between professors and researchers from two academic departments at Cal Poly and from the university's teaching support center. The Department of Natural Resources Management and Environmental Science has joined with the English Department and the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology to develop a writing intensive pilot curriculum of four sequential courses. The curriculum will consist of two required undergraduate courses in the Environmental Production and Management degree program emphasizing on developing quantitative skills, combined with two English and technical-writing courses at corresponding levels. We anticipate that the execution and completion of this project will have both academic and real-world impacts. First, findings from this project will impact the quality of future curricular offerings at our home institution. Second, publication of our findings nationally and internationally will contribute to the development of transdisciplinary approaches to sustainability at other institutions. Third, the project will contribute to the development of a workforce trained in sustainable practices in the agricultural industry. Finally, our project timeline will allow us to generate rich data on the quality of teaching and learning that will be measurable through student learning outcomes. Each of the objectives listed above will be measured according to the following impacts.Impact #1: The project has built into it intense faculty collaboration between a professor of Natural Resources Science and Environmental Management and a faculty member in English. The focus of this collaboration will be to develop a transdisciplinary understanding of sustainability that has an immediate pedagogical imperative. With ongoing support from the internal work force targeting the enhancement of writing and rhetoric education, both faculty members will assist in the design of each other's courses, will observe each other's courses, and will participate in the program assessment of all four courses. This relationship will deliver a shared conceptual framework for sustainability that will inform all other areas of the project.Impact #2: The project's writing-intensive, transdisciplinary teaching model will be tested and evaluated through three program assessment cycles. One assessment will take place at the outset of the project to evaluate current quantitative-oriented courses on sustainable agriculture and current writing-oriented courses on scientific reasoning and communication. This initial assessment will help the project directors make informed decisions in course redesign and will provide a baseline for identifying student competencies in sustainable agriculture and writing. A second assessment will take place midway through the delivery of the courses, using an assessment protocol. A third assessment will take place at the end of the project to evaluate the effectiveness of the pilot curriculum in improving student competencies in both sustainable agriculture and writing.Impact #3: Four courses will be redesigned and delivered over a three year period, reaching approximately 165 undergraduate students each year. Findings from the project will be published at conferences and in peer-reviewed journals. At the conclusion of the project, the research team will develop a strategy for continuation of the project at Cal Poly following the funding period. The progress of the project will also be updated on a website hosted on a Cal Poly web server.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
90374103020100%
Knowledge Area
903 - Communication, Education, and Information Delivery;

Subject Of Investigation
7410 - General technology;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education;
Goals / Objectives
The proposed project aims to create a transdisciplinary curriculum between environmental science and writing & rhetoric. The project seeks to create a curriculum that integrates the scientific skills of quantitative analysis and the interpretation of results with the humanistic skills of negotiating rhetorical situations and creating strategic, purposeful writing about sustainable agricultural practices.By studying sustainable agriculture and writing in this way, students will develop an array of analytical and communicative skills that will enable them to tackle real-world issues. Helping students develop this emerging skill set in science communication at the undergraduate level will enable them to work effectively in career positions in sustainable agriculture and will enable them to better consider the social and cultural contexts in which scientific knowledge is produced and disseminated through writing. Findings from the assessment of these linked pilot courses will be published in peer-reviewed journals and at academic conferences so that programs nationwide can adapt and adopt the project to improve curricula and enhance the quality of teaching and learning in food, agricultural, natural resource, and human (FANH) sciences system and in writing in the disciplines. These outcomes will be a critical driving force in the retention of agricultural professionals in FANH industries in the future. The project team will carry out the following major tasks to achieve the study goal:(a) to redesign and link sequence of four undergraduate courses at Cal Poly. Two courses in natural resources science and environmental management, and two courses in writing will form a pilot curriculum based on a shared, transdisciplinary conceptual framework that draws together disciplinary knowledge from both science and the humanities around a focus on sustainable agricultural practices; and (b) to deliver these redesigned courses in multiple, strategic iterations that will generate data from which researchers can form conclusions about best teaching practices. We can map our objectives onto the four challenges listed above as follows.The project will meet the following four objectives:Objective #1 - A focus on sustainability. Approaching sustainable agriculture from a transdisciplinary perspective will enable universities to support agricultural policy-making by teaching the next generation of agricultural scientists to apply emerging methodologies like life cycle analysis (LCA) to quantify sustainability and to use writing and communication strategies to negotiate often precarious rhetorical situations involving an array of stakeholders, all of whom are materially invested in and subject to the material consequences of various agricultural practices and production pathways.Objective #2 - A focus on education. The project will create a pilot curriculum that synthesizes existing teaching efforts and modes of inquiry in different disciplines. This synthesis will enhance students' ability to assess and comprehend complex real-world issues in agriculture, such as resources management and environmental protection. The project will improve students' competence with new numerical and analytical methods to effectively deliver environmental information and to communicate scientific findings to different audiences for different purposes.Objective #3 - A focus on transdisciplinary collaboration. The project bridges the barriers between disciplines that rely on quantitative sustainability and disciplines that approach sustainability from the point of view of literacy and social practice. This collaborative approach to sustainability will improve social and cultural understandings of agricultural policies and agricultural science, and will improve the role of agricultural science in the formation of sustainable practices.Objective #4 - A focus on professional development. The project will improve the quality of teaching and learning by enabling faculty to collaborate on developing teaching strategies in multiple disciplines. The project will quantify and assess students' performance to provide feedback on improving long-term curricula design and planning.
Project Methods
The PD is experienced in LCA, environmental simulation, and quantitative sustainability, whereas the Co-PDs specialize in writing across the curriculum, writing in the disciplines, environmental rhetoric and communication, and literacy practices. Four courses already taught by the PD and Co-PDs will be redesigned as courses in a pilot curriculum on writing the science of sustainable agriculture.The proposed project will employ writing and science tutors who will play a critical role in developing and implementing the pilot curriculum. Two tutoring positions will be offered each year during the three years of project period, and one teaching assistant position will be offered by NRES department as matching support. Tutors and teaching assistants will support in-class activities, including: (a) supporting course material editing, (b) tutoring students from the experimental groups, writing workshop facilitation and (c) basic grading. Moreover, three multidisciplinary focus groups will be organized to identify critical FANH educational issues and evaluate the project performance, respectively. The project will be implemented in three phases based on the academic year (AY) calendar.Phase 1 (AY2016-2017): Pilot Curriculum DevelopmentIn this phase, the research team will focus on integrating teaching and administrative resources to develop the pilot curriculum. Flyers, emails, and in-class briefings will be adopted as vehicles to increase students' awareness on this new teaching approach. Through course advising, students will be encouraged to take these linked courses in environmental science and writing and to participate in sequential evaluation.Task 1.1 Focus group workshop. With the support of CTLT, a faculty-centered assessment workshop will be hosted at an early stage in this phase. Participants consisting of faculty from both disciplines will assess the current quality of teaching and learning in existing iterations of ENGL 145, ENGL 302, NR 142, and NR 311. Participants will provide insights and suggestions on evaluation parameters and rubrics, and strategies to overcome anticipated academic hurdles while implementing the new teaching model.Task 1.2 Curriculum design. Based on the initial project assessment, the project director and co-directors will design new course materials using a transdisciplinary framework to link NR 142 and ENGL 145 together, and to link NR 311 and ENGL 302 together.Task 1.3 Student employment. A teaching assistant from the NRES department and tutors from the Writing & Rhetoric Center will participate in an orientation and training program that prepares them to assist faculty in delivering the pilot curriculum. These three student positions will facilitate collaborative learning experiences among their peers to understand new objectives, concepts, and terminologies of sustainable agriculture and writing.Task 1.4 Coordinate with the Course Scheduling Office. We will ensure that students can take the linked NR/ENGL courses without time conflicts and ensure that the faculty members teaching these courses (the project director and co-directors) will be available to observe each other's classes without conflict.Task 1.5 Website development. A website hosted on a Cal Poly web server will be created and managed by the research team in order to announce relevant project activities, research progress, and publish research results and documents to public audiences.Phase 2 (AY2017-2018): Model ImplementationTask 2.1 Course engagement. The pilot curriculum will launch, offering NR 142 and ENGL 145 concurrently in Fall quarter, and NR 311 and ENGL 302 concurrently in Winter and Spring quarters.Task 2.2 Evaluate and analyze student learning outcomes. Student performance data from control groups (students following regular course schedule without taking the linked courses) and experimental groups (students taking the linked NR/ENGL courses) will be compiled based in the matrix developed in Task 1.1. Data will be analyzed in order to derive relevant information to improve the proposed model.Task 2.3 Revise course materials. Courses will be redesigned based on the initial findings of Task 2.2 in preparation to launch the second round of model implementation in Phase 3.Phase 3 (AY2018-2019): Model and Project EvaluationTask 3.1 Course engagement. Revised pilot curriculum will be delivered, offering NR 142 and ENGL 145 concurrently in Fall quarter, and NR 311 and ENGL 302 concurrently in Winter and Spring quarters.Task 3.2 Evaluate and analyze student learning outcomes. Student performance data will again be collected for analysis and comparison with data from Task 2.2.Task 3.3 Focus group meeting. Conduct a second focus group workshop to assess the outcomes of the pilot curriculum in order to better inform the Course Curriculum Committee at the college and university level.Task 3.4 Disseminate project findings. The data and findings from this project will be documented and published at academic conferences and peer-reviewed publications. The publications will be adapted and adopted by multidisciplinary audiences to perform curriculum improvement for meeting similar learning objectives nationwide. Together with the website (Task 1.5), publications will serve as a blueprint to guide course activities, lab experiments, and long-term curriculum improvement.

Progress 06/01/17 to 05/31/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Our project has made growing impact at different levels. At the university level, our original target audience was the General Education Governance Board (GEB) and the two partnered colleges: College of Liberal Art and College of Agriculture. With the extended effort of the research team, the examined teaching model has been introduced to additional programs on campus, such as College of Engineering and College of Science. Faculty interested in multidisciplinary subjects can adopt the proposed teaching method to enhance student engagement and meaningful learning. At the scholarly and professional level, the project has enabled PI and Co-PI to explore and integrate comprehensive teaching method by presenting the project findings at international forums. Three universities in Taiwan are now interested in exercising our pedagogy to develop courses that can marry educational foci in engineering programs and business schools. The project results were also presented in international conferences and published in journals in the realms of education and sustainability. Scholars interested in the same subject matters can have access to determine the feasibility of our teaching model at their institutes. Changes/Problems:To comply with COVID19 safety guidelines, research meetings and analytical tasks were delayed. With the approved no-cost extension, the team finalized the project by 2021 Spring. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The funding support enables PI Chiu and Co-PI Peters to engage in multidisciplinary collaboration. PI Chiu and other Cal Poly faculty also teamed up to investigate the learning and teaching efficiency in sustainability with the support of this project. This opportunity enables PI Chiu to develop two journal manuscripts, one of which was published in 2019, and the other one will be submitted in June 2021. Co-PI Peters also published an article in 2020 with the support of this project. To expand our knowledge in enhancing teaching effectiveness for advancing agricultural sustainability, Pl and Co-PI also presented the project outcomes at various national and international conferences, Global Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education (virtual, 2020), International Sustainable Development Research Society Conference (Nanjing, China, 2019), California Higher Education Sustainability Conference (Santa Barbara, CA, 2019), and International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technology (Buffalo, NY, 2018). These conference presentations provide an opportunity to solicit feedback from and offer professional development to colleagues in English studies and environmental science nationally and internationally. In addition, PI Chiu was able to establish a virtual exchange program with Taiwan to demonstrate the teaching approaches implemented in the HEC project to advocate sustainability education in the U.S. This virtual exchange program was launched in Fall 2020 and benefit 22 students from Cal Poly and 10 bilingual students from Taiwan during the first run. Finally, both Cal Poly undergraduate and graduate assistants participated in this project were able to simultaneously improve their written and oral communication skills. Over the course of this project, two student assistants were supported to conduct studies in relevant subjects. Two master-degree theses were completed with the support of this HEC grant. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In 2019 summer, PI Chiu was invited to give presentations at two universities in Taiwan to discuss the current status of sustainability education in the U.S. higher education using Cal Poly's HEC project as an example. This has broadened HEC's impact beyond a regional level. With the support of the HEC program, we were able to reach out to local and international audiences not only to demonstrate the collaborative teaching approach, but also to obtain feedback from diverse groups of experts to continually modify and improve the implementation of our project. In Cal Poly, PI Chiu was invited to participate in two working groups focusing on teaching sustainability and quantitative reasoning because of the recognition on her research efforts supported by HEC. The studied courses (NR314 and NR142) were selected as assessment targets by the working group. In addition to attending conferences and development manuscripts, the website "Quantitative Sustainability" has been updated periodically and adopted a platform to share our research and teaching experience and outcomes attributed to HEC's support. The website can ensure the accessibility of all audiences. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Over the course of the project period, the research team conducted focus group meetings to compile feedback from faculty and students who were involved in teaching or learning sustainability in the realm of agricultural sciences. The research team also reached out to various working groups at Cal Poly to assess student learning outcome in communicating sustainability challenges. The USDA HEC funding allowed PI Chiu and Co-PI Peters to re-construct cross-disciplinary curriculum planning and design to bridge the academic barriers between STEM and liberal arts. Objective #1 - A focus on sustainability. Over 400 undergraduate students received training to apply life-cycle analysis to better understand the implications of agricultural sustainability. The skill of quantitative reasoning is crucial to enable students pursuing professional career tracks by demonstrating analytical competency. The USDA HEC grant enabled the research team to carry out campus-wide survey to better understand students' perception on learning sustainability. Our research filled the knowledge gaps and expanded upon the findings in the current literature, regarding the impact of academic setting, specifically structured sustainability curriculum on undergraduate sustainability knowledge. Additionally, the research team also assessed the underlying differences of sustainability knowledge in different student groups. These activities allowed us to identify specific barriers and potential opportunities to implementing sustainability into curriculum at high education. As the college of agriculture at Cal Poly is among one of the colleges that offer more sustainability-related courses (25%) than other counterparts, we found that agriculture-majored students did not perform significantly better than others in sustainability knowledge. This reveals the fact that many traditional agricultural programs still implement a conventional agricultural education emphasis without incorporating the environmental and socioeconomic dimensions to reiterate the human-environment relationship. This finding indicates the need and opportunity to transform conventional agricultural education by adopting contemporary perspective to enhance sustainability literacy and communication. Objective #2 - A focus on education. The Grant enabled the research team to participate and engage in two campus-wide assessments to identify the educational quality in promoting sustainability. Our study found that unless students can receive structured curriculum to systematically learn sustainability, a minimal of three relevant courses are required for students to internalize the knowledge of sustainability. Therefore, how to significantly expose students to the learning of sustainability has become an essential effort in higher education. To permanently institutionalize the work done for this project, PI Chiu developed an advanced course NR445 Systems Thinking in Environmental Management in 2019, to reflect the educational need in promoting quantitative sustainability. Co-PI Peters proposed a new upper-level writing course, ENGL316 Writing Sustainability based on our pilot curriculum. This course will be a recommended writing elective for multiple programs in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. In AY 2020-2021, Co-PI Peters wrote up the course design, consulted with the NRES Curriculum Committee, and submitted the course for approval through the university's Academic Senate. It is currently pending approval to be offered beginning in Fall 2022. Objective #3 - A focus on transdisciplinary collaboration. The Grant enabled the research team to leverage institutional efforts to enhance students' competences in sustainability knowledge and quantitative reasoning. The research team collaborated with faculty from colleges of engineering, architecture, sciences, and business, in additional to PI and Co-PI's home college agriculture and liberal art, to conduct multidisciplinary studies for understanding the effectiveness and efficiency to teach quantitative reasoning in sustainability. In these collaborative efforts, we systematically evaluate students' competence in quantitatively reasoning sustainability, we found that it is necessary to focus on students' competence in abstracting complex issues and communicate those issues with proper logical approaches. By frequently exercising quantitative reasoning, students can better communicate with peers with different backgrounds to articulate diverse sustainable challenges. Such educational training and environment are still greatly lacking, given current curriculum structure and teaching modality. Therefore, by deploying new courses like NR445 and ENGL316 can expand institutional teaching capacity to address such educational need. Students taking these new courses will be more likely to engage in collaborative and multidisciplinary learning environment. The research finding of our project well justify the institutional need to highlight similar effort in the near future. Objective #4 - A focus on professional development. PI and Co-PI were able to participate in diverse research and work forces to leverage their knowledge in promoting agricultural sustainability through various channels. Through the HEC project, we brought together faculty from liberal arts and environmental sciences to synchronize multidisciplinary educational effort to promote agricultural sustainability. We also expanded our effort to an international level allowing students from California and Taiwan to discuss agricultural sustainability and solutions by factoring in social challenges. Students from both regions teamed up in a virtual platform to compare agricultural practices and challenges facing different local communities. Students responded that this international collaboration increased their confidence to engage in global agenda. They also felt more comfortable to work in a multicultural working environment, which can have substantial impact on expanding their career opportunities and trajectory.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2021 Citation: Briens, E.; Chiu, Y.-W.; Braun, D.; Verma, P.; Fiegel, G.; Pompeii, B.; Singh, K. Assessing undergraduate sustainability knowledge under different academic settings and status.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Jason Peters (2020) Public Art as Social Infrastructure: Methods and Materials for Social Action at Environmentally Contaminated Sites. Reflections: A Journal of Public Rhetoric and Writing, 19.2, 106-129.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chiu, Y., Institutional Implications on Promoting Education in Sustainability: Student Learning Outcome. Global Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education, virtual (2020)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Peters. J., AgWriteCulture: Creative Sustainability Courses. California Higher Education Sustainability Conference, University of California, Santa Barbara, July 8-11, 2019.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chiu, Y.-W., Integrating Research and Curriculum for Enhancing Teaching and Learning Quantitative Sustainability: A Transdisciplinary Teaching Model. 25th International Sustainable Development Research Society Conference, Nanjing, China (2019)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chiu, Y., Implications of Multidisciplinary Pairing Curricula in Shaping Future Sustainability Education, Summer Workshop Series in Environmental Management. University of Taipei in Technology, Taipei, Taiwan. July 13-14, 2019.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Pompeii, B.; Chiu, Y.-W.; Neill, D.; Braun, D.; Fiegel, G.; Oulton, R.; Ragsdale, J.; Singh, K. Identifying and Overcoming Barriers to Integrating Sustainability across the Curriculum at a Teaching-Oriented University. Sustainability 2019, 11: 2652.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chiu, Y., Integrating quantitative and communication skills in Sustainability Education: Cal Polys Experience, Educational Forum: Multidisciplinary Approaches. University of Chi-Nan University, Puli, Taiwan. July 27-28, 2019.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chiu, Y.-W., Peters, J., A Transdisciplinary Curriculum Designed for Enhancing Teaching and Learning Agricultural Sustainability. International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technology (ISSST), Buffalo, NY (2018)
  • Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Writing the Science of Sustainability: AgWriteCulture (quantsus.calpoly.edu/wss)


Progress 06/01/19 to 05/31/20

Outputs
Target Audience:Our project has made growing impact at different levels. At the university level, our original target audience was the General Education Governance Board (GEB) and the two partnered colleges: College of Liberal Art and College of Agriculture. With the extended effort of the research team, the examined teaching model has been introduced to additional programs on campus, such as College of Engineering and College of Science. Faculty interested in multidisciplinary subjects can adopt the proposed teaching method to enhance student engagement and meaningful learning. A the scholarly and professional level, the project has enabled PI and Co-PI to explore and integrate comprehensive teaching method by presenting the project findings at international forums. Two universities at Taiwan are now interested in exercising our pedagogy to develop courses that can marry educational foci in engineering programs and business schools. The project results were also presented in international conferences and published in journals in the realms of education and sustainability. Scholars interested in the same subject matters can have access to determine the feasibility of our teaching model at their institutes. Changes/Problems:To comply with COVID19 safety guidelines, research meetings and analytical tasks were delayed. With the approved no-cost extension, the team will be able to finalize the project by 2021 Spring. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The funding support enables PI Chiu and Co-PI to continually engage in multidisciplinary collaboration. Starting from Fall 2019, PI Chiu and other Cal Poly faculty teamed up to investigate the learning and teaching efficiency in sustainability with the support of this project. This opportunity enables PI Chiu to supervise a HEC-sponsored graduate student to conduct additional study related to this subject matter, and a journal manuscript has been drafted and expected to be submitter in 2020. Pl Chiu's applications and abstracts submitted to the Global Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education (GCSHE) has also been accepted for presentation in October 2020. We have applied for a no-cost extension, which will allow the team to compete additional curriculum assessment delayed by COVID19. The extension will also enable PI Chiu to deliver presentation at GCSHE by incorporating data compiled from Spring quarter 2020. These conference presentations provide an opportunity to solicit feedback from and offer professional development to colleagues in English studies and environmental science nationally and internationally. In addition, PI Chiu was able to establish a virtual exchange program with Taiwan to demonstrate the teaching approaches implemented in the HEC project to advocate sustainability education in the U.S. This virtual exchange program will be launched in Fall 2020 and benefit 22 students from Cal Poly and 10 bilingual students from Taiwan during the first run. Finally, both Cal Poly undergraduate and graduate assistants participated in this project were able to simultaneously improve their written and oral communication skills. A graduate RA was sponsored by the HEC project to perform data mining, data analysis, and is expected to finish her graduate thesis by October 2020. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Both PI and Co-PI have continued to develop manuscripts that will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals. In 2019 summer, PI Chiu was invited to give presentations at two universities in Taiwan to discuss the current status of sustainability education in the U.S. higher education using Cal Poly's HEC project as an example. This has broadened HEC's impact beyond a regional level. With the support of the HEC program, we continued to reach out to local and international audiences not only to demonstrate the collaborative teaching approach, but also to obtain feedback from diverse groups of experts to continually modify and improve the implementation of our project. In Cal Poly, PI Chiu has been invited to participate in a new working group focusing on teaching quantitative reasoning because of the recognition on her research efforts supported by HEC. The studied courses (NR314 and NR142) were selected as assessment targets by the working group. In addition to attending conferences and development manuscripts, the website "Quantitative Sustainability" has been updated periodically and adopted a platform to share our research and teaching experience and outcomes attributed to HEC's support. The website can ensure the accessibility of all audiences. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?As mentioned previously, certain tasks have been delayed due to COVID2019. We have applied for a no-cost extension to carry out the following tasks: Analyze student data compiled from Spring quarter 2020 Host one focus group meeting to discuss future objectives of sustainability education in agriculture Complete one graduate thesis Complete one manuscript and submit to a peer-review journal Deliver at least one conference presentation Continue to update the "Quantitative Sustainability" website

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In academic year 2019-2020, the research team focused on the implementation of Phase 3 of this project. Our original grant proposal listed three tasks to be completed in this phase: Task 3.1 Course engagement. Revised pilot curriculum will be delivered, offering NR 142 and ENGL 145 concurrently in Fall quarter, and NR 311 and ENGL 302 concurrently in Winter and Spring quarters. The pedagogy of these courses have constantly been modified and adjusted based on students' learning outcome each year. NR311 has been revised and transformed as a new course NR314 in order to strengthen students' quantitative and analytical skills for better aligning with the context of sustainability. The lab sessions of NR314 have been schematically reconfigured to streamline what students learned in ENGL302. The pairing between NR142 and ENGL145 has also been completed and implemented again in Fall 2019. Task 3.2 Evaluate and analyze student learning outcomes. Student performance data will again be collected for analysis and comparison with data from Task 2.2. A campus-wide survey was deployed in Fall 2019 to evaluate students' knowledge level in sustainability. The survey result has been formatted and analyzed to derive general patterns in reflecting students' literacy competence. Students' performance from studied courses (NR142, NR314, ENGL145 and ENGL302) has been compiled, but the data analysis has been delayed due to COVID2019 and the subsequent change of teaching methods. Task 3.3 Focus group meeting. Conduct a second focus group workshop to assess the outcomes of the pilot curriculum in order to better inform the Course Curriculum Committee at the college and university level. Another round of focus group meeting was scheduled to take place in Spring 2020. This has been delayed due to COVID2019. Task 3.4 Disseminate project findings. Co-PI Peters published an article to discuss the methodological approaches to communicate social conflicts in mitigating contaminated sites. Both PI Chiu and Co-PI Peters also successfully deliver three presentations at national and international conferences based on the experienced learned from this project. A website has been developed to facilitate multidisciplinary teaching and research efforts focusing on promoting sustainability.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Jason Peters (2020) Public Art as Social Infrastructure: Methods and Materials for Social Action at Environmentally Contaminated Sites. Reflections: A Journal of Public Rhetoric and Writing, 19.2, 106-129.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: AgWriteCulture. Creative Sustainability Courses. California Higher Education Sustainability Conference, University of California, Santa Barbara, July 8-11, 2019.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Implications of Multidisciplinary Pairing Curricula in Shaping Future Sustainability Education, Summer Workshop Series in Environmental Management. University of Taipei in Technology, Taipei, Taiwan. July 13-14, 2019.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Integrating quantitative and communication skills in Sustainability Education: Cal Polys Experience, Educational Forum: Multidisciplinary Approaches. University of Chi-Nan University, Puli, Taiwan. July 27-28, 2019.


Progress 06/01/18 to 05/31/19

Outputs
Target Audience:We continued to reach out to a similar group of audiences as last year to improve our assessment method. Internationally, PI Chiu presented this project at the The International Sustainable Development Research Society (ISDRS) at Nanjing, China. This event served as an important bridge to demonstrate how a teaching-oriented institute can implement an interdisciplinary teaching approach to facilitate the education of sustainability in the U.S. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The funding support enables PI Chiu and Co-PI to continually engage in multidisciplinary collaboration. In May, PI Chiu and other Cal Poly faculty published an article "Identifying and Overcoming Barriers to Integrating Sustainability across the Curriculum at a Teaching-Oriented University" (in Sustainability, 2019, Vol. 11) with the support of this project. Pl Chiu's applications and abstracts submitted to two professional events, Sustainability across the Curriculum Workshop (Santa Clara, CA), and International Sustainable Development Research Society (Nanjing, China), have all been accepted for presentation in June. These conference presentations provide an opportunity to solicit feedback from and offer professional development to colleagues in English studies and environmental science nationally and internationally. In addition, we continue to coordinate with our campus's writing across the curriculum specialist to create professional development opportunities for other Cal Poly faculty on the topic of curriculum design for teaching sustainability through our campus Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology. Finally, a number of our students have gained professional experience and training through this project. Both undergraduate and graduate assistants participate in this project were able to simultaneously improve their written and oral communication skills. The graduate RA had the opportunity to participate in research meetings and discussion allowing her to experience project management and research planning. This critical skill can enable her to initiate her master-degree dossier and implement her degree project independently. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? This May, PI Chiu teamed up with Cal Poly faculty members from various fields to publish a journal article determining the barriers and opportunities in teaching and learning sustainability. This paper collects and analyzes student and faculty knowledge and perceptions toward sustainability education at teaching-oriented higher education institutes such as Cal Poly. In June, PI Chiu will also share the experience learned from this project at Sustainability across the Curriculum Workshop (Santa Clara, CA) in order to obtain suggestions and new ideas on improving the teaching approaches we currently implemented at Cal Poly. In late June, PI Chiu will attend an international conference in China, and will use this project as an example to present current on-going efforts taken at higher education in the U.S. for promoting sustainability. This presentation will show case how we facilitate comprehensive learning approaches to enable students participating in future sustainability forums. With the support of the HEC program, we can reach out to a broad spectrum of audiences locally and internationally not only to demonstrate the collaborative teaching approach, but also to obtain feedback from diverse groups of experts to continually modify and improve the implementation of our project. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Our original grant proposal outlines four tasks to be completed in the third phase of the project. Task 3.1 Course engagement. Revised pilot curriculum will be delivered, offering NR 142 and ENGL 145 concurrently in Fall quarter, and NR 314 and ENGL 311 concurrently in Spring quarters. Task 3.2 Evaluate and analyze student learning outcomes. Student performance data will again be collected for analysis and comparison with data from Task 2.2. Task 3.3 Focus group meeting. Conduct a second focus group workshop to assess the outcomes of the pilot curriculum in order to better inform the Course Curriculum Committee at the college and university level. Task 3.4 Disseminate project findings. The data and findings from this project will be documented and published at academic conferences and peer-reviewed publications. The publications will be adapted and adopted by multidisciplinary audiences to perform curriculum improvement for meeting similar learning objectives nationwide. Together with the website (Task 1.5), publications will serve as a blueprint to guide course activities, lab experiments, and long-term curriculum improvement.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In academic year 2018-2019, ''Writing the Science of Sustainability" completed Phase 2 of its development. Our original grant proposal listed three tasks to be completed in this phase: Task 2.1 Course engagement. The pilot curriculum will launch, offering NR 142 and ENGL 145 concurrently in Fall quarter, and NR 314 (originally numbered as 311) and ENGL 302 concurrently in Winter and Spring quarters. PI Chiu and Co-PI Peters continued to collaboratively modify teaching approaches in these courses in order to better align and synchronize relevant course activities. For example, NR142 was tailored to facilitate research questions development, data collection, data analysis, and result presentation, whereas ENGL145 was paced to discuss human-environmental relationship, literacy narrative, interview skills, and reflective writing. By aligning course activities, students can gradually explore relevant topics and exercise constructive skills to achieve course learning objectives. In the advanced courses (NR314-ENGL302), the teaching approach also follows the same strategy. Task 2.2 Evaluate and analyze student learning outcomes. In these designated courses, we conducted multiple runs of student assessments to collect students' writing samples for evaluating their competence level to communicate complex subjects related to environmental conservation and sustainability. Students' artifacts were also collected for future assessment to determine the strength and weakness in communicating sustainability. The research team also hosted separated focus group meetings to obtain feedback from student participants and faculty consultants. Different sets of scripts were developed for different groups of participants (students and faculty). Their responses were recorded with their consent, which were further converted to written transcript for analysis. These focus group meetings aimed to identify the perception of students and faculty in learning and teaching STEM subjects and practices to integrate literacy and communication in supporting STEM education. Task 2.3 Revise course materials. Courses contents and syllabi were redesigned based on the initial findings and experience learned from student and faculty feedback, as well as the teaching experience and course observation obtained by PI and Co-PI. The research team also meet periodically to share course materials and course artifacts in order to develop deeper understanding on opportunities to accommodate students' learning need. This information is in preparation to launch the second round of project implementation in Phase 3.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Pompeii, B.; Chiu, Y.-W.; Neill, D.; Braun, D.; Fiegel, G.; Oulton, R.; Ragsdale, J.; Singh, K. Identifying and Overcoming Barriers to Integrating Sustainability across the Curriculum at a Teaching-Oriented University. Sustainability 2019, 11, 2652.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Yiwen Chiu, Jason Peters. Integrating Research and Curriculum for Enhancing Teaching and Learning Quantitative Sustainability: A Transdisciplinary Teaching Model. the 25th Annual International Sustainable Development Research Conference Sustaining Resources for the Future at Nanjing University, on June 26-28, 2019.


Progress 06/01/17 to 05/31/18

Outputs
Target Audience:We have identified multiple audiences from the local to the international/global. At the university level, our project's target audience is the General Education Governance Board and the two partnered colleges, the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) and the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Sciences (CAFES). We hope that the General Education program and major and minor programs in both colleges will find the project a useful model for interdisciplinary course design and implementation around the university's Sustainability Learning Outcomes (SLOs). At the scholarly and professional level, one of our target audience's is the field of English studies, which encompasses composition, literature, linguistics, and English education, and which is interested in scholarship and teaching on issues such as the environmental humanities and the rhetoric of sustainability. Another target audience is environmental and agricultural scientists interested in developing innovative curricular approaches to teaching environmental science and writing together. At the international/global level, our target audience consists of international organizations that sponsor conferences and symposia on sustainability, such as the ISSST, or which publish academic journals, such as the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?On April 6, Co-PI Peters presented the project concept at the 2018 conference of the College English Association in St. Petersburg, FL. In June, PI Chiu will present the project concept at the 25th International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technology (ISSST) in Buffalo, NY. These conference presentations provide an opportunity to solicit feedback from and offer professional development to colleagues in English studies and environmental science nationally and internationally. In addition, we are coordinating with our campus's writing across the curriculum specialist to create professional development opportunities for other Cal Poly faculty on the topic of curriculum design for teaching sustainability through our campus Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology. Finally, a number of our students have gained professional experience and training through this project. The undergraduate TA was able to simultaneously refine both her written and oral communication skills with students and faculty by exercising instructional support. She has also gained further insight into the importance of quantifying environmental impacts and how they relate to identifying areas of improvement in product manufacturing, transportation, material usage, and waste disposal. The graduate RA had the opportunity to delve into the prominent literature surrounding the interdisciplinary movement in higher education. This project has given the RA the opportunity to utilize her science background as a tool to gently transition to and interconnect with humanities higher education research. As her understanding of the demands of teaching sustainability for the practical application in a real-world setting has grown, she has come to understand the overwhelming importance of unity and collaboration between different disciplines for the challenging common goal of a greener future. The RA was provided with the opportunity to practice her presentation skills by regularly keeping them up to date with her progress, are currently teaching her how to do literature reviews. The RA has gained knowledge to better understand sustainability as more than just a scientific community exclusive issue. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Since Phase 1 of the project has been focused on planning, designing, and coordinating the departmental relationship between NRES and ENGL, the results we have to share are largely conceptual and logistical, not yet data-driven. To that end, we have worked to promote the project to the larger campus community. First, we named and branded the project AgWriteCulture: In April, PI and Co-PI participated in a campus charrette on sustainability as part of Cal Poly's Earth Week events. In a fifty-minute "shift-and-share" session, we delivered a poster presentation to approximately forty charrette participants. The presentation shared the overall concept for the project and identified some of the strategies we have employed for meeting the logistical challenges of linking multiple courses across two different colleges on campus. The charrette enabled us to foster campus faculty and staff support for the project. Further, as noted above, Dr. Peters presented the project at the 2018 conference of the College English Association in April in St. Petersburg, FL. In June, Dr. Chiu will present the project concept at the 25th ISSST conference in Buffalo, NY. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Our original grant proposal outlines five tasks to be completed in the second phase of the project: Task 2.1 Course engagement. We plan to deliver revised iterations of ENGL 302 and 314 based on our initial Phase 1 experience. We also plan to broaden the engagement with the project on campus by partnering with additional stakeholders beyond the campus Sustainability and Zero Waste coordinators. The PI and Co-PI have started the conversation and exercise to align teaching objectives and course activities in both NR 142 and ENGL 134 to be taught in the coming Fall quarter (2018). Task 2.2 Evaluate and analyze student learning outcomes. Working with Co-PI Janke and our campus's writing across the curriculum specialist, we will develop and implement a research design to capture qualitative and quantitative data on student learning experiences and outcomes for NRES 142, ENGL 134, NR314. We will also interview students who took NR 314 and ENGL 302 in 2018 to analyze their learning outcomes and experience in order to identify educational need from a student's perspective. The feedback from student participants will provide significant insight allowing the research team to modify teaching strategies by overcoming hurdles students experienced in learning the science sustainability. Task 2.3 Revise course materials. Based on the initial findings from Task 2.2, we anticipate redesigning the courses in preparation for Phase 3 in 2019-2020. In Phase 1, we collaborated with our campus Zero Waste coordinator to focus the courses around sustainable approaches to waste management. This focus is particularly apt given the university's aggressive goal to achieve zero waste by 2020. In order to institutionalize the courses beyond the funding period and beyond the university's 2020 goal, we plan to develop a flexible curricular approach that is capable of adapting our course design to the university's shifting, long-term sustainability goals.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In academic year 2017-2018, "Writing the Science of Sustainability" completed Phase 1 of its development. Our original grant proposal outlined five tasks to be completed in this phase: Task 1.1 Focus group workshop. By the end of the current fiscal year, the PI and co-PIs will have convened our first focus group to assess the quality of NR 142 and ENGL 134. Task 1.2 Curriculum design. The PI Chiu and Co-PI Peters mapped the syllabi of NR 142 and ENGL 134 together, and NR 314 and ENGL 302 together, to identify common learning objectives and to integrate assignment sequences across the courses. We partnered with our campus Sustainability Coordinator and our Zero Waste Coordinator to develop hands-on learning experiences that integrate the science of sustainability with the strategies and practices of using writing for public engagement on environmental issues. Additionally, because we were able to easily complete Task 1.4, we had the opportunity to get a head start on Phase 2 Task 2.1 (launching the pilot curriculum) by running the first iterations of NR 314 and ENGL 302 together with a small cohort of students co-enrolled in both courses during the Spring 2018 quarter. Task 1.3 Student employment. Using NRES departmental matching funds, an undergraduate teaching assistant (TA) was hired to assist in delivering NR 314. In addition, using grant funds established for student employment, a graduate research assistant (RA) was recruited to participate in this project. The graduate assistant has conducted class observations of both NR 314 and ENGL 302 and has begun to conduct a review of the literature on teaching sustainability in higher education to assist us in manuscript preparation. Task 1.4 Coordinate with the Course Scheduling Office. The PI and co-PIs worked with the Registrar's Office and with the course schedulers for the NR and ENGL departments to avoid time conflicts in scheduling the target courses for the Winter 2018, Spring 2018, and Fall 2018 quarters. We worked with the department course schedulers to adjust enrollment caps on the target courses to reserve seats for our research cohort. We coordinated with the Registrar's Office to block schedule a cohort of students in NR 142 and ENGL 134 for Fall 2018. We were actually able to recruit a small cohort of students to participate in the first iteration of NR 314 and ENGL 302 in Spring 2018, a task originally planned for Phase 2 of the project in 2018-2019. Task 1.5 Website development. We have published a shell of our project website at https://quantsus.calpoly.edu/wss

Publications

  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: 2 Posters " Yiwen Chiu, Jason Peters. AgWriteCulture: Writing the Science of Sustainable Agriculture  A Transdisciplinary Teaching Model. Infusing Sustainability Across the Curriculum Charrette, San Luis Obispo, CA, April 20, 2018. " Yiwen Chiu, Jason Peters. A Transdisciplinary Curriculum Designed for Enhancing Teaching and Learning. 2018 International Symposium on Sustainable Systems & Technology (ISSST), Buffalo, NY, June 26-28, 2018. 2 Oral presentations " Jason Peters, AgWriteCulture: Sustainable Science Meets Community Engagement. College English Association 2018 Conference: Bridges. St. Petersburg, FL, April 4-7, 2018. " Yiwen Chiu. Student-oriented Research and Learning Experience: Environmental Life-Cycle Impacts of Ecologically-Sound Restoration. 2018 International Symposium on Sustainable Systems & Technology (ISSST), Buffalo, NY, June 26-28, 2018.