Fostering Systems Thinking in High School Environmental Engineering Through Engagement of Coastal Communities

This project is an innovative exploratory research study focused on developing a high school environmental engineering curriculum that addresses the challenges posed by climate change. The curriculum follows a model-validate-iterate design paradigm, where students model dynamic real-world systems, validate their models using data, and create multiple iterations to explore changes in the system over time. The project aims to cultivate a new generation of environmental engineers who possess the necessary skills to analyze complex systems, collaborate with diverse communities, and develop creative solutions. By integrating systems thinking (ST) and critical science agency (CSA), the curriculum will bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world applications. Through collaborative efforts with students—largely from minoritized backgrounds, teachers, and community partners, the project will create an engaging and participatory STEM learning experience. The outcomes of this project will contribute to the national interest by preparing students for environmental engineering careers and empowering them to address climate change-related challenges with creativity, effectiveness, equity, and justice.

Using a design-based implementation research approach, the interdisciplinary research team--including the University of California, Irvine's Schools of Education, Engineering, and Biological Sciences--will partner with informal science educators from the Orange County Department of Education, teachers from a local school district and students from minoritized communities, and non-profit and community partners to co-design the curriculum. The project will investigate coastal changes as well as flooding concerns along the Santa Ana River in Orange County, CA. The curriculum will be tested with three classes (approximately 100 students) from underrepresented minority groups and low socio-economic backgrounds. Research questions will explore the design process and learning process and related student outcomes: 1. How can an environmental engineering curriculum and learning activities be designed to integrate a focus on ST and CSA in a way that is impactful? How do different stakeholders (i.e., researchers; informal science educators; high-school students; community members) participate and contribute their perspectives and expertise to the design process? 2. How do participating students from diverse backgrounds engage in co-designed learning activities? To what extent do they develop ST and CSA? The project will be structured in three phases: participatory co-design in Year 1, a curriculum testing in Year 2, and data analysis in Year 3. Data sources will include interviews with community members, recordings of design sessions, fieldnotes, and design artifacts, pre/post engineering ST measures, lesson recordings and interviews with a sub-sample of students and a student feedback survey. A mixed-method approach will be employed to analyze the design process through equity-centered participatory research perspectives and to examine students' learning process and development of CSA. Regression analysis will be employed to examine student learning outcomes. Findings will be disseminated through publications in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and practitioner-oriented conferences. Participating high-school students will be invited to present to their community and share with peer networks. The curriculum will be made available to teachers and informal educators for free through the project website.