Students promoting economic development and environmental sustainability

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 384-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Keen ◽  
Elizabeth Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Waste Streams ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Partners ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
New Information ◽  
Effective Form

Community‐based research has been suggested as a particularly effective form of service learning in college‐community collaborations. This paper reviews findings from interviews with alumni/ae and community partners of an environmental and economic sustainability center at Allegheny College in Northwest Pennsylvania, the Center for Economic and Environmental Development (CEED). CEED's community‐based research projects have spanned the natural and social sciences to analyze water quality, reduce waste streams and local energy consumption, identify environmental problems and enhance forest management. Interviews with alumni/ae point to the valued real world experience, enhanced cognitive development, and improved communication skills for students. Community partners valued new information and networks resulting from research and stressed the contribution they were making to college students' learning. Community‐based research projects can benefit from interviewees' recommendations to increase continuity, clarity of purpose, and follow‐through in projects, while maximizing opportunities for dialogue between community partners and students. Community‐based research may have a strong contribution to make to students' cognitive, academic, social, civic and career development.

scholarly journals Impacting Community Well-Being in Lafayette, Indiana, in the Midst of a Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-136
Author(s):  
Eli Coltin ◽  
◽  
Eric Flaningam ◽  
Jace Newell ◽  
Jason Ware
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Automated System ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Partners ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act ◽  
The City

For the past five years, Dr. Jason Ware has centered community-based research and service-learning courses around local community partners’ needs as they focused collectively on community well-being issues. The nature of their work has prioritized qualitative research methods such as narrative inquiry via in-depth interviews and ethnography via immersive observations within varying service-providing institutions such as the Hartford Hub and the Hanna Community Center. COVID-19 and the constant threat of its transmission meant that Dr. Ware, his students, and their community partners had to approach their work differently. They responded with a pivot. They turned to mining large publicly accessible and proprietary data sets, such as United States Census data, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data, the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) data, and the Polk Directory data. The pivot served as a direct response to the City of Lafayette’s need for useful data that could inform decision-making related to neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing, and homelessness intervention. This different approach impacted the co-authors’ learning and scholarly development and provided the community partners with useful data. The co-authors experienced increased autonomy in pursuing data-specific questions, extracting data, analyzing, and visualizing it. One of the co-authors taught himself Python to import, statistically analyze, and visualize the data, and then presented the findings to the City of Lafayette. The co-author’s initial work — a pilot study — led to a scaled-up project that resulted in five significant outputs for three different community partners with a direct impact on six neighborhoods in the north end of Lafayette. Another co-author, who focused on scholarship during the pandemic, led an effort to develop a comprehensive literature review focused on the effect of community-based robotics programs on minority youth. The co-author also had presentations accepted at the local, national, and international levels while working on multiple publications. The third co-author is partnering with the other authors to create an automated system that will support the collection, extraction, and analysis of secondary data that will facilitate sustainable data analysis into the future.

Utilization of Collaborations to Engage Children in Physical Activity: A Community-Based Research Approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 323-328
Author(s):  
Sheri J. Brock ◽  
Danielle Wadsworth ◽  
Shelby Foote ◽  
Mary E. Rudisill
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Collaborative Partnerships ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Partners ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
Quality Product ◽  
Long Term Impact

Institutions of higher education have a responsibility to prioritize the needs of society and local communities. One essential need prevalent in all communities is to address the rise of obesity and health risks due to lack of participation in physical activity. In the United States, children spend a small percentage of time engaged in physical activity, and engagement decreases further in adolescence and adulthood. Collaborative partnerships between kinesiology faculty at universities and community organizations are one avenue for engaging children in physical activity. Partnerships must be multilevel and community wide to evoke change and have long-term impact and sustainability. Within the context of community-based research, we propose a three-step framework for establishing collaborative partnerships: (1) determining the needs of partners; (2) discussing expertise, services, and philosophy; and (3) providing a quality product. In addition, we outline and illustrate our experiences when collaborating with community partners to promote physical activity.

scholarly journals Community-Based Research: Perspectives of Psychology Researchers and Community Partners

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Racine ◽  
Sheri Madigan ◽  
Shelley Cardinal ◽  
Cailey Hartwick ◽  
Margaret Leslie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Community Context ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Conceptual Foundation ◽  
Community Partners ◽  
Psychology Programs ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
Learning Gap ◽  
Research Perspectives

There is now a growing understanding that translational research must be co-created in collaboration with community partners and that solutions to real-world social problems require stepping outside the academic silo. Fewer than half of psychology programs in Canada, however, offer courses in community-based research or evaluation, leaving a gap in skill development amongst the next generation of scholars. In an effort to partially fill this learning gap, the current paper provides insights into lessons learned from the perspectives of researchers and community partners alike, who have been mutually engaging in community-based research over the last 25 years. Ultimately this paper seeks to provide a roadmap for conducting community-based research and illustrates why it should be a central component to research seeking to answer critical questions in psychological science. First, we provide a conceptual foundation of community-based research. Next, using three specific community-based research projects as examples, we share the challenges and benefits of conducting research in the community context. Finally, we highlight future directions for increasing the uptake of community-based research in Canada.

scholarly journals Considering Power in Community-Based Research: Shifting Toward New Pedagogical Approaches with a 'Public Work for Public Things' Framework

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Haarman ◽  
Patrick M Green
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Power Differential ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Work ◽  
Community Based Learning ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Service Learning Pedagogy ◽  
The Voice

One of the fundamental questions of power in the pedagogy of community-based research (CBR) is who gets to decide what is research worthy and what is the focus of CBR questions? The reality of the power imbalance in community-based research and learning is often reflective of a systemic disengagement with the broader community. Even when instructors and administrators are intentional in how they solicit feedback or think through the impact of their work, they may not know the neighbourhood. Prioritising the voice of community partners does not provide a simple solution, as the individuals we work with to organise community-based learning opportunities may not be residents of the neighbourhood. This article adopts a theory-building approach to this crucial question. Building on the work of Boyte (2014) and Honig (2017), community-based research is reoriented as ‘public work for public things’ (Haarman 2020). After establishing the ‘public work for public things’ framework, the article explores how this new framework impacts collaborative research by addressing the power differential and creating new lines of inquiry – specifically the practice of ‘elicitation of concerns’. Through the lens of critical service-learning pedagogy (Mitchell 2008) and a practitioner-scholar framework (Lytle 2008; Ravitch 2013; Salipante & Aram 2003), we then interrogate two community-based research courses we have recently taught, examining how a ‘public work for public things’ approach would have altered the course and its methods.

scholarly journals Intergenerational Community-Based Research and Creative Practice: Promoting Environmental Sustainability in Jinja, Uganda

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 389-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie McQuaid ◽  
Robert Vanderbeck ◽  
Jane Plastow ◽  
Gill Valentine ◽  
Chen Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
Creative Practice

scholarly journals Assessing excellence in community-based research: Lessons from research with Syrian refugee newcomers

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rich Janzen ◽  
Joanna Ochocka
Keyword(s):  
Societal Impact ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Community Mobilisation ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Knowledge Mobilisation ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
Case Examples ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Syrian Refugee ◽  
Community System

In this article, we critically reflect on three Syrian refugee research projects that were conducted simultaneously in Ontario, Canada, in order to: (1) strengthen the community system of support for refugee newcomers; (2) address social isolation of Syrian parents and seniors; and (3) promote wellbeing of Syrian youth. Our purpose in this article is to demonstrate a tangible way of assessing research projects which claim to be community-based, and in so doing gain a deeper understanding of how research can be a means of contributing to refugee newcomer resilience. Our assessment of the three studies was done through the reflective lens of the Community Based Research Excellence Tool (CBRET). CBRET is a reflective tool designed to assess the quality and impact of community-based research projects, considering the six domains of community-driven, participation, rigour, knowledge mobilisation, community mobilisation and societal impact. Our assessment produced four main lessons. The first two lessons point to the benefit of holistic emphasis on the six categories covered in the CBRET tool, and to adaptability in determining corresponding indicators when using CBRET. The last two lessons suggest that research can be pursued in such a way that reinforces the rescue story and promotes the safety of people who arrive as refugees. Our lessons suggest that both the findings and the process of research can be interventions towards social change. The diversity of the three case examples also demonstrates that these lessons can be applied to projects which focus on both individual-level and community-level outcomes.

Using Community-Based Research Projects to Teach Research Methods

1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Chapdelaine ◽  
Barbara L. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Research Methods ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Based Research

Service Learning Partnership Between University And School Students: Experiential Learning Inspired Through Community Research

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Nandan
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Corporate Philanthropy ◽  
Community Research ◽  
School Students ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Community Based Research

This article describes a service learning project implemented jointly by undergraduate and high school students during summer.  The service learning project was designed through a Summer Research Institute hosted at a Midwestern University; the institute encouraged faculty to recruit undergraduate students who would partner with area high school students to conduct a community-based research project in their field of interest.  The article describes the partnership between students, as well as the experiential learning that occurred during: research topic identification, literature analysis, planning and implementing a mixed-methodology community-based research project, and during the qualitative and quantitative data analysis, by students.  Using a mosaic theory, the students inferred relationships between three apparently unrelated spheres of their research: challenges faced by youth in the community, financial health of social services for youth, and corporate philanthropy for youth services.  Recommendations for designing creative academic, experiential and service learning projects are offered for all educators. 

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document