Checkpoint 3 Reporting: Oklahoma

How have you made progress on your pathway?

Our primary progress has been the planning and implementation of a community listening meeting on March 24 in Norman, OK. 25 people were invited, based on their understanding of and connection with critical elements of the pathway from middle school to tribal college to university, including after school and informal learning experiences, and XX were able to attend the meeting (see the agenda at http://serc.carleton.edu/earthconnections/oklahoma/oklahoma_tribal.html). Individual tribes have unique issues relating to encouraging and mentoring their students to engage in STEM-related activities, thus it was important to include multiple viewpoints in the planning process.

The outcomes of the meeting (see report outline at http://serc.carleton.edu/earthconnections/oklahoma/oklahoma_tribal.html) were
1. Identification of community priorities
2. Determination of what educational activities are already happening in the local communities, and
3. Creation of three working groups: K12, undergraduate, and Informal. These groups will begin to create improved pathways that build on existing resources.
As a simple evaluation of the meeting, all attendees were asked to write down one thing that they wanted us to know about the meeting.

As part of the broader dissemination strategy for the OK alliance, Danielle Sumy made a presentation at the 2017 Crisis and Risk Communications workshop in Orlando, FL, titled The challenges and opportunities to effectively communicate and educate with earthquake affected communities in Oklahoma, where she described the OK alliance effort as part of her presentation. Other dissemination and larger scale community building occurred via John Taber, along with Aisha Morris and Sean Fox attending an INCLUDES workshop at AAAS titled The Technical and Human Infrastructure to Support Collective Impact of the INCLUDES Program at the Alliance and Network Levels.

Upcoming activities
1. The alliance has been invited to present two hours of activities for students on 7/10/17 during a STEM camp run by the Bureau of Indian Education. Our intent is to draw in members of the K12 working group to be part of the planning and perhaps teaching of the activity, and to use this as an example of how geoscience activities can be inserted into existing programs.
2. Norma Neely will be making a presentation on the OK alliance at the Indian Education Summit, 7/25/17-7/26/16. This will also be an opportunity to bring together alliance members and the working groups.

Describe why the steps you took were important in meeting your pathway goals

For change to occur, we decided that we needed to first identify community leaders who could drive changes in their community, then to find out their concerns and their existing structures and activities, and then to begin to build trust such that we can help them to work together to create new pathways. Norma Neely's ongoing connection with many of the attendees was an important part of that strategy.

Pathway Development

Embedding in the local community

Educational leaders in Native American communities were brought together for the community listening meeting in March. These included representatives from the tribes in the region, as well as university and Oklahoma Geological Survey representatives. The group was largely comprised of people who could make decisions and implement educational changes in their communities. Job titles of invitees included: Indian Education Director, Oklahoma State Department of Education; Governor, Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma; President, Wichita and Affiliated Tribes of Oklahoma; Executive Education Director of School Programs, Choctaw Nation; Director, Cherokee Nation Education Services; Indian Education Director, Anadarko Public Schools; President, Pawnee Nation College; Director, Center for Sovereign Nations, Oklahoma State University; and Sustainability Scientist for the Chickasaw Nation. The cross section of Native American leaders is probably sufficient for now as we move into the stage of holding working group meetings, but we would like to add other regional stakeholders such as industry representatives for future meetings of the full regional alliance.

Process to get community input

The primary approach so far has been to hold a community listening meeting in March to find out the geoscience-related and/or science education concerns of local communities. We leaned that water was the #1 concern but induced seismicity was an issue, particularly for some tribes. We also founds out that there are a lot of STEM-related activities already going on, but the activities aren't very well connected. See the meeting summary at http://serc.carleton.edu/earthconnections/oklahoma/oklahoma_tribal.html for the list of community concerns and existing educational programs.

Use geoscience to address a local need or problem

As mentioned above, our focus will be on addressing the problem of induced seismicity in Oklahoma. While this wasn't the #1 concern, energy-related issues in general rated highly and one tribe, the Pawnee Nation, is currently suing oils companies for damages (http://temblor.net/earthquake-insights/oil-companies-sued-over-earthquakes-2693/). Our goal is to help teachers educate students and parents about the causes and effects of hydrofracking and waste water disposal so that they can make informed community-based decisions. The Oklahoma Geological Survey is deeply involved in this issue and they want to expand their work with local communities.

Participants also identified a need to encourage more Native American students to enter geoscience and related fields and to then return to the reservations, as there is a shortage of Native American technical expertise on the reservations.

Learning opportunities diagram

Rough draft of potential OK alliance pathways (Acrobat (PDF) 4.6MB May11 17)

Mentoring and signposting to support students

We haven't yet reached this stage with the working groups, but we expect mentoring to be built on existing programs and community leaders.