Rising with the Tides of Change Through Community Based Literacies

Abstract

Community Based Literacies (CBL) connects faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with school-age children from the central coast of California. This chapter presents an account of how our intergenerational university-community team pulled together during intersecting challenges of COVID, sociopolitical upheaval, and extreme environmental conditions to connect with and engage in meaningful experiences with our local community of youth and families. Our efforts involved major shifts from in-person to virtual explorations and collaborative projects (e.g., an anthology coauthored by youth) with an even greater emphasis on social activism and celebrating the experiential knowledge of youth that is often overlooked. Hence, this chapter offers readers a ‘spotlight tour’ of CBL programming during a tumultuous period. We share parallel tales of perseverance and transformation of three key CBL programs—LEAFY (Literacies for Environmental Awareness and Farming for Youth), Curie-osity Project, and CBL in the Schools (a partnership with Santa Barbara Unified School District) to show what possibilities abound when we give young students access to knowledge about key societal issues and a platform by which they can contribute to the transformations needed for a socially just and equitable society.

Prior to March 2020, our maritime community of youth and undergraduate co-learners were exploring our marshlands and researching how oil rigs impact (and possibly support) marine life. We were building an outdoor movie theater to watch how plastic finds its way into our channel. We were writing books about our maritime community and the too-often invisible work of women and transgender scientists who have contributed to new understandings about the impacts of climate change on our local environment. We were planting, gathering, painting, designing, and representing. On March 17, 2020, everything shut down as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Up to this unforeseen moment, our multi-program team of program leaders, graduate student coordinators, and undergraduate facilitators, all of whom work within the initiative called Community Based Literacies (CBL) in Santa Barbara, California, were exploring a number of place-based interests and curiosities with local youth from respective partnering elementary school and after-school programs. Such collaborations came to an abrupt halt on that fateful day in March, necessitating a different plan for maintaining our mission to empower our young co-learners to engage in collaborative, creative work as authors, artists, environmental stewards, and activists that have much to contribute to our community.

Introduction

Community Based Literacies (CBL) is a multi-program initiative for local multilingual youth living in a coastal community in central California, providing opportunities to critically explore and participate as equitable members that contribute to the understanding and wellbeing of our community. This chapter presents an account of how our intergenerational university-community team pulled together during intersecting challenges of COVID, sociopolitical upheaval, and extreme environmental conditions to connect with and engage in meaningful experiences with our local community of youth and families. Our efforts involved major shifts from in-person to virtual explorations and collaborative projects (e.g., an anthology co-authored by youth) with an even greater emphasis on social activism and celebrating the experiential knowledge of youth that is often overlooked. Hence, this account traces our journey through one of the most difficult periods in modern history without compromising our core programmatic principles of agency, co-learning, and belonging. The graphical overview (Fig. 10.1) provides a broad sketch of this multi-programmatic initiative.

Fig. 10.1

Graphical overview of community based literacies (CBL)

During 2020–2021,132 youth living in a multilingual community that broadly identifies as Latinx/Chicanx participated in CBL through partnering school-based or after-school programs. Biweekly sessions in each site centered on interests and concerns related to local environmental issues such as the ongoing drought in California that has led to an onslaught of firestorms. A key trait of CBL is intergenerational learning, which begins with discussions about shared interests and curiosities that highlight locally relevant interdisciplinary concepts. Initial activities focused on building a sense of regard and trust among members. Once a foundation of trust was established, co-learners engaged in myriad interdisciplinary literacy activities–reading, researching, discussing, and writing about local environmental issues such as the vast amounts of fertilizer and microplastics that have made their way through our withering waterways to our ocean. All activities were sources for creative work in both English and Spanish. Like previous years, we encouraged young students to participate in knowledge building that is anchored in place-based practices less commonly available in schools.

The overarching trio of CBL principles–agency, co-learnership, and belonging–guided the decisions we collectively made in order to stay true to who we are as a community. Young participants were positioned as co-learners with undergraduates, most of whom were pursuing a minor in education. Graduate student coordinators and lead faculty modeled and encouraged co-learning teams to raise questions that reveal hidden inequities about local issues such as the dumping of debris on public beaches following post-fire mudslides. (See UCSB’s post, “Mudslide Microbes,” here: https://uclinks.berkeley.edu/chapter10.) This goal is echoed in Y-PLAN programs described in this volume; a common value our respective programs share is acknowledgement that youth can be agents of change within their community. Such critical, collaborative approaches were informed by sociocultural, critical theories of literacy (Lewis et al., 2020) and a Funds of Knowledge framework that emphasizes the importance of community-based knowledge and expertise in learning (González et al., 2006). The democratic positioning of CBL members reflects a steadfast commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion foregrounded in the introduction of this volume.

Youth and undergraduates shared similar cultural and linguistic roots. More than 85% of K-8 students in our community are from working-class families within a predominantly Latinx/Chicanx neighborhood near the university and speak at least some Spanish at home. Our university is a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI); nearly half (49%) of undergraduates enrolled in CBL-related practicum courses in 2020–2021 identified as Latinx/Chicanx and also reported speaking some Spanish, Mixtec, Zapotec and other languages indigenous to Mexico. Such cultural and linguistic diversity is a welcome resource to our learning communities given that the vast majority (~70%) of local public school teachers are white and speak only English.

This chapter offers readers a ‘spotlight tour’ of CBL programming during a tumultuous period. See works led by Cano and Arya (2023), Arya et al. (2022), Arya et al. (2022), Cano et al. (2021), Hirsch et al. (2021), Muller et al. (2021), and Nation et al. (2019) for more in-depth descriptions about the CBL framework and its impact on participants. Here we share parallel tales of perseverance and transformation of three key CBL programs—LEAFY (Literacies for Environmental Awareness and Farming for Youth), Curie-osity Project, and CBL in the Schools (a partnership with Santa Barbara Unified School District) to show what possibilities abound when we collaborate with young co-learners on key societal issues that in turn contribute to the transformations needed for a socially just and equitable society.

Virtual conferencing narrowed the ways in which members of the three programs could gather and engage in programming activities. However, we also found it liberating in terms of how youth and undergraduate co-learners explored various digital and synchronous spaces, particularly those beyond the local context. Similarly, a new initiative we developed to bring young co-learners across CBL programs as well as across the University-Community Links (UC Links) network–Youth Summit (YS)–emerged from the ashes of the Curie-osity Project, which abruptly ended in March 2020. Figure 10.2, representing a kind of walking tour map, outlines the programs featured in our tour of trials and transformation.

Fig. 10.2

A ‘walking tour map’ of Community Based Literacies (CBL) programming

• 1. Literacies for Environmental Awareness and Farming for Youth—LEAFY (https://www.cbleducation.org/leafy). Third through eighth-grade members of the local Boys & Girls Club were invited to participate in this program. Undergraduate co-learners associated with this program engaged in environmental activities that included explorations of the surrounding natural environment and gardening/farming. Art projects (e.g., visual displays and poetry) were integral to such activities, shared in periodic, ‘open-house’ family events. Upon the onset of the pandemic, the leadership team created an alternative online program called Nature Near You—NNY. (Watch the “Nature Near You” video here: https://uclinks.berkeley.edu/chapter10.) During NNY sessions, young co-learners were invited to direct a guiding facilitator within a natural environment (e.g., forest in Costa Rica) through Zoom. NNY became a featured activity of the first Youth Summit in 2021.

• 2. CBL in the Schools (CBL-School). Fourth through sixth-grade students engaged in co-researching, drafting, peer editing, and publishing a multimodal anthology (i.e., print-based essays, stories and poetry as well as video reflections and documentaries) about environmental topics and issues related to the local maritime community. (Watch the CBL-School video here: https://uclinks.berkeley.edu/chapter10.) All sessions occurred online following the onset of the pandemic. Young co-learners participated in both NNY sessions and the Youth Summit. (Watch “Nature Near You Kids’ Edition” video here: https://uclinks.berkeley.edu/chapter10.)

• 3. Curie-osity Project—(https://www.cbleducation.org/curie-osity). Fourth through twelfth-grade members of two local Girls Inc. sites participated in explorations of STEM-related topics and issues through connections with STEM professionals at our university. Co-learners collaborated in researching, writing, and publishing accounts of their explorations using interview data they collected. Curie-osity Project (CP) sessions paused after the onset of the pandemic due to a significant overturn of leadership. (Watch the Curie-osity Project video here: https://uclinks.berkeley.edu/chapter10.) The coordination team chose to pivot programmatic goals to act more globally across all remaining CBL programs. This shift led to the creation of a community newsletter and the first virtual gathering of the Youth Summit. (Watch the Youth Summit 2022 video here: https://uclinks.berkeley.edu/chapter10.) 

Each of these ‘mini tours’ are anchored by a common set of questions about the people involved in each program and how they are equitable partners in building locally relevant knowledge about and creating innovative tools and approaches for addressing a rapidly changing world. We include images, video links, and quotes from participating members to provide a transparent representation of multilingual, intergenerational learning. Each mini tour focuses on one CBL principle, collectively telling the story of our efforts to connect and create with our young co-learners during the pandemic. While we were unable to learn, play, and create within the same physical space—as shown in Fig. 10.3 from an earlier LEAFY session—we found ways to connect through virtual portholes that took us further than we originally expected.

Fig. 10.3

LEAFY poetry session in progress

Branching Towards New Virtual Ground (Agencia en LEAFY)

• Estefanía Pihen González,
• John Cano &
• Matthew Shackley 

Literacies for Environmental Awareness and Farming for Youth (LEAFY) emerged in 2017 from an existing partnership with a local after-school program located less than two miles from our university. This partnering site (the Club) is affiliated with the United Boys & Girls Club of America and is one of approximately 10 affiliated clubs within the Santa Barbara area. The surrounding town is home to some of the oldest family-owned businesses in the Santa Barbara region (Goleta Chamber of Commerce, 2019). The Club resides behind a community center that offers family services and temporarily housed evacuees from the devastating 2019 Cave Fire near Santa Barbara’s Los Padres National Forest.

This historically recognized town is home to a number of undocumented residents from Mexico. The linguistic landscape is infused with variations of Spanish and Mixtec. Shoppers can often hear música ranchera playing softly in the background, purchasing ingredients one cannot generally find beyond the Mexican border. In 2018, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) included this area in a 3 day raid. The Club was one of few safe spaces for community members, providing guidance and resources for navigating confrontations with ICE agents. The majority of youth at the Club live in working-class homes and are eligible for free lunches at the nearby school. The Club continues to be a key food distributor to families living nearby.

In 2020, 16 young co-learners (14 elementary and two high school students) attended weekly sessions in what we call the vivero. This outdoor space was once the Club’s alleyway, filled with plastic packaging from lunches, broken furniture, and remnants of cardboard. We transformed this space into an edible garden that began with the expressed desires and interests of our young co-learners. (Watch the Edible Garden video here: https://uclinks.berkeley.edu/chapter10.) What fruits and veggies should we plant? What do we want to explore? What do we want to learn? As in all our programs, we collectively decided what we planted, what we built, and where we visited in our maritime community. We needed more places to sit and relax. Could we plant maracuyá? Yes, we certainly can. Young co-learners harvested, prepared, and ate vivero-grown organic salads, all with their own hands based on their own ideas and goals, which included building an outdoor movie venue from upcycled wood pallets in order to watch the documentary, A Plastic Ocean (Leeson et al., 2016) while munching on popcorn from the Club’s kitchen.

We listened and encouraged action from young co-learners who grew more trusting and confident in expressing their curiosities and desire to protect the surrounding natural environment. Such expressions ranged in scope and focus, from grand questions for our era (How can we save our planet?) to the more everyday logistics (Where can we hang our backpacks?). Similar to other CBL programs, LEAFY co-learners collectively determined program outcomes–what to plant, build, create, learn, and share. All young co-learners had unmatched knowledge and experience, and hence were essential contributing leaders in our community (Figs. 10.4 and 10.5). Young co-learners had shared power and authority with undergraduate and graduate students, weighing in on options, working with financial and scheduling constraints and available resources (e.g., reserving recording equipment or e-tablets).

Fig. 10.4

LEAFY

Fig. 10.5

Images from LEAFY sessions

Young co-learners recorded salient moments through video/audio footage and kept personalized plant journals. They had final say in what information would be included and illustrated in published works and presentations for community audiences. Such agency has been highlighted in research across disciplinary, school-related contexts including mathematics (Brown, 2009), science (Cavagnetto et al., 2020), and literacy (Arya, 2022; Moje & Lewis, 2020) as well as in informal, after-school contexts (e.g., Rappa & Tang, 2017). Furthermore, the agency we emphasized was one of social transformation; the creative work produced by co-learners stemmed from curiosities and concerns about the ways that local residents can support and benefit from the surrounding environment. Through sharing and discussing life-supporting resources to the broader community, young colleagues developed both the mindset and leadership skills of environmental stewards, hence transforming into citizens committed to fostering a better world for all forms of life (Hopwood, 2022). Our practices deliberately involve a social dance among natural and digital artifacts as exemplified by the plant diaries represented in Fig. 10.6.

Fig. 10.6

Digital plant journaling and interaction

On March 17, all creative efforts stopped, just before the university’s spring break. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to happen in slow motion and then all at once. Upon our return from break, we thought programming would be paused for another 2 weeks. Yet 2 weeks became 2 months, with the Summer fast approaching. In collaboration with our partnering leaders at the Club, we contributed to and shared a CBL digital newsletter with youth and family members sheltering in their homes. We coordinated a monthly at-home maker challenge through this newsletter (Fig. 10.7), encouraging recipients to upload videos of their creative work that we shared in subsequent issues. Rube-Goldberg machines filled our screen; marbles rolled through fantastical obstacles constructed from rolled newspaper and rubber bands. The potential of youth filled the digital pages, showing that if given the opportunity, our young co-learners can create light during dark times.

Fig. 10.7

Spanish excerpt from a CBL newsletter issue

One of our greatest successes stemmed from an experiment a couple of months into lockdown. What would happen if a lead coordinator ventured into her backyard and offered a tour to co-learners via Zoom? After some discussion and planning with program leadership, the first session of Nature Near You (NNY) came to fruition. If we could not explore together in person, we would figure out a way to bring nature up close to online attendees, who seemed to welcome new views beyond bedrooms, kitchens, and living rooms. Young co-learners were active viewers of nature videos and agents of virtual exploration in real time. During each exploration, young co-learners guided our field of view. NNY hosts selected places with potential for encountering various forms of life, opening eyes and ears to the natural world in need of passionate stewards (Fig. 10.8). Our co-learners had a front-row seat to the symbiosis demonstrated by wood ants navigating the grooves of a tree’s trunk. The first series of virtual explorations took place along the coastline of Ventura and Malibu, showcasing local tide pools, beaches, and estuaries. Virtual explorers spotted and questioned the perils of plastic remnants near marine birds hunting for small bivalves along the shoreline. Our young co-learners took in the beauty of estuaries, how the brackish water provides unique habitats for plants and animals that could not thrive elsewhere. They also took in the debris collected at this sacred zone of both freshwater and ocean, wondering what perils the discarded plastic cups and candy wrappers have on the life they were observing. Such explorations led to more questions about the impacts of single-use plastics and the importance of environmental stewardship. Discussions about observed phenomena led to insights into and explanations for the ways our sociocultural, sociopolitical, and economic issues are connected with the health of life on our planet.

Fig. 10.8

Virtually exploring nature

We noticed a steady increase in virtual attendance over time, which inspired us to select locations beyond our local community. One of the coordinators (Pihen) took advantage of pre-scheduled international trips by zooming us into the lush jungles and rivers of Costa Rica and the dense tropical forests of Nicaragua. We also Zoomed our young co-learners back to our campus, guiding their eyes around a microbiology lab. As NNY sessions continued through the 2020–2021 period, youth from across California and beyond–including Vancouver and Costa Rica–tuned in each week to explore new sights and sounds. This expanded audience was made possible by relations and previous work affiliations of our coordination team and afforded access to natural spaces farther from home, leading to deeper discussions of commonalities and differences across geographic regions. Showcasing spaces merely required a co-learner to step outside their door, making nature accessible to everyone. A shared awareness grew from such virtual discussions, particularly about the number of hidden, local natural spaces that are free and open for public use. Co-learners were becoming agents of their own natural explorations, hence maintaining the programmatic goals that originally guided LEAFY activities and projects.

After our return to in-person programming in Spring 2021, we decided to continue our popular weekly virtual NNY sessions. Co-learners gathered at the Club’s computer lab to participate in virtual nature walks, this time as a whole group viewing the experience on a big projector screen. This new setup allowed for underwater explorations of unique and protected marine places, including Santa Cruz (Limwu) Island and La Jolla Cove. We began collecting a repository of pre-recorded explorations in order to visit various natural spaces and better prepare for discussions. We viewed and discussed recordings of swaying kelp forest in our channel and discussed how the increased intensity of storms have imperiled their survival. Co-learners also viewed schools of fish, playful seals, sleeping sea lions, and colorful sea stars up close on the large screen. This repository provided the explorer and site-based coordinator with different opportunities to engage students; young co-learners asked for the videos to be paused when they had key questions or comments. The array of insights and curiosities that emerged during these sessions fostered systemic thinking about living environments (e.g., the mechanics of a biome), even among the youngest co-learners (kindergarteners). We collectively wondered about the role of kelp in climate mitigation, why sharks were not a concern for the underwater explorer, and why large-scale fishing was damaging the underwater world they were observing (Fig. 10.9).

Fig. 10.9

Nature Near You session in progress

As pandemic restrictions continued to shift during 2021, we noticed the effects of ‘Zoom fatigue’; young co-learners seemed to struggle in maintaining their focus on the screen and the number of attendees began to wane. They expressed interest in exploring phenomena that they could actually touch. We expanded NNY practices to include hands-on explorations by bringing in marine life, like sea kelp and lobsters, in a cooler of ocean water. Young co-learners connected their new tactile knowledge (the kelp leaves are so bumpy!) with imagery of the swaying kelp forest in previously recorded virtual sessions. As demands for NNY visits grew across programming sites, the number of undergraduate facilitators and researchers expanded, resulting in more mentoring opportunities and hybrid explorations at local botanical gardens, beaches, and various patches of untouched land. Moving forward, LEAFY and NNY will continue to coexist to provide a more comprehensive, transformational experience for our young co-learners who must develop the agentive skills of environmental stewardship if we are to sustain life on Earth.

Making Waves with Coastal Literacies (Aprendizaje Colaborativo en la Escuela)

• Dogukan Ozgen &
• Valerie Meier 

Our partnering elementary school (the School) has been affiliated with our university’s graduate school of education since the early 2000s, beginning with nominal connections such as co-sponsored school supply drives and annual field trips and evolving more robust programs like our Community-Based Coastal Literacies program. The partnership began in 2019 with a grant from the California Library Association. Seventy-five fourth- to sixth-grade students and their teachers participated. Our young colleagues at the school engaged in weekly sessions with their undergraduate co-learners, reading and discussing ideas and information from textual media ranging in both genre (research reports, interview articles, poetry, etc.) and modality (printed texts, infographics, podcasts, etc.). In Fall 2019, we were in the beginning phases of the co-authorship grant, building a complex, multi-site experience for all developing co-authors. Field trips were a key component of this program; our young co-learners visited our campus on a weekly basis for engaging in interest-based, small-group research and reading discussions and visits to various campus locations for gathering information related to marine science. We found that such campus visits were invaluable for fostering equitable, collegial relationships among elementary and undergraduate co-learners (Fig. 10.10). Over time, we observed a growing confidence and comfort among the young co-learners in making assertions and editorial decisions about activities and projects. After a couple of months of campus visits, we observed a greater willingness to share curiosities and experiential knowledge that served as a foundation for collective knowledge building. (Watch the CBL-School video here: https://uclinks.berkeley.edu/chapter10.)

Fig. 10.10

Community Based Literacies at the school

The school is further from campus than the Club; the added distance (10 miles) poses a challenge for our undergraduate co-learners who have packed class schedules and uneven access to transportation. Similar to the Club’s youth members, the majority of students (more than 85%) attending the school are from working-class families with Latinx/Chicanx roots and live in subsidized housing within driving distance to the school. The gentrified neighborhood surrounding the school features tree-lined streets and renovated, craftsman-style bungalows. Most children attending the school are bussed in from subsidized housing a few miles away. The segmented topography of this part of the city prevents easy access to community resources; traffic barricades and freeway on- and off-ramps divide the school from the community.

Similar to previous years, our coastal literacies program focused on a shared goal with our partnering school leaders to support the literacy development and overall academic growth of students in Grades 4-6. Our undergraduate co-learners took a practicum course earlier in the Fall that centered on collaborative learning and researching with a goal of fostering multilingual reading and writing practices. They learned about various assessment and instructional approaches, including a reading discussion tool called the CRUSH-it Model (Arya & Meier, 2022), a heuristic for guiding small-group dialogic discussions in a way that positions young students as knowledgeable contributors.

We also encouraged our elementary and undergraduate co-learners to search for hidden biases or authorial assumptions in order to question the author’s intentions and what (or who) may be excluded in their accounts. We were inspired by socio-constructivist scholars (e.g., Jha & Devi, 2014; Nanjappa & Grant, 2003; Sandoval et al., 2022; Vygotsky, 1978) who view learning as a meaning-making process in which stakeholders actively participate in the creation and recreation of knowledge. In a socio-constructivist learning context, no single person has the ‘best’ knowledge or expertise; each member of the learning environment brings an array of skills, knowledge as tools for collective knowledge building. We learn when we allow ourselves to be supported and challenged by others we trust, and when others trust us to do the same.

As at the Club, all visits to the school stopped on March 17, 2020. Our undergraduate co-learners were limited to Zoom sessions with their young colleagues for the remainder of the year. We lost touch with sixth-grade co-learners after their teachers decided to exit the authorship program because of the demands on them during that time. For the first two months, most of the remaining fourth- and fifth-grade co-learners (50 in total) Zoomed in from their homes. Wi-Fi connections were intermittent at best, mirroring reports across our country; half of working-class families reported the dependence of a single mobile phone for their entire family, including children, for connecting with work- and school-related activities (Schaeffer, 2021; Tackie, 2022). A number of young co-learners were limited to using their caregivers’ mobile phones, their families’ sole connection to the Internet, to attend CBL sessions. Absenteeism became an issue, further debilitating our efforts to engage young co-learners who were either sick from the virus or sick and tired of trying to log into sessions that resulted in little more than being disconnected from the Internet. Small victories were achieved during this challenging time; undergraduate co-learners applied every possible tool for connecting with and learning from their young colleagues, including the use of emoji reaction options in Zoom for checking to see how group members were feeling. The Google Jamboard application was useful for collective brainstorming ideas and reactions during reading discussions, collaborative art projects, and impromptu games like Pictionary.

We believe that a saving grace was the foundation we established with our young co-learners prior to the shuttering of in-person programming. Absences became, according to school leadership, far less frequent compared with other grades at the school. Cooperating teachers noted near-perfect attendance on days that we met online. We attribute this to the fact that our co-learners had gotten to know and appreciate one another during in-person gatherings. They knew who was the oldest and youngest in their family. They shared stories about losing beloved pets and family members (Fig. 10.11). They had compared scars from climbing trees and biking accidents. They had become a kind of family, one in which members appreciated each other just as they were. Hence, we maintained our efforts to learn from each other.

Fig. 10.11

Cover of anthology written by young co-learners at the school

We invited our young co-learners to continue their free associations with various textual phenomena that we displayed through the Zoom-enabled screen-sharing tools. One young co-learner spoke through his mariachi puppet to report on video footage of a deep-sea exploration. Younger siblings and pets offered welcome segues for synthesizing ideas discussed during the session. A cat could serve as an innocent bystander to breaking news about our dying coral reef. A two-year-old sibling provided young co-learners with the challenge of engaging the younger visitor long enough to count dolphins leaping along a motorboat. We grasped at every opportunity to engage, connect, and weave in contributions from co-learners to maintain progress on drafts for the anthology of written work that would be due in June. We were one of only two schools awarded by the library association that year that successfully completed the authorship program.

In-person programming resumed in May 2020, during the final few weeks of the school year. All sessions took place outside at the school; our university remained closed to all in-person activities. Half of the undergraduates attended in person; the other half attended online. This hybrid design was a challenge due to unstable Wi-Fi connections. The school set up large tents along the perimeter of the campus, providing shade for students who sat at makeshift tables from large plastic bins filled with notebooks, pencils, and basic craft supplies. Students were prohibited from using playground equipment, which soon became a foundation for fashioning messages of hope that swayed in the breeze (Fig. 10.12).

Fig. 10.12

Wishes from young co-learners written and hung on playground structure

Site-based attendees were required to wear masks at all times, necessitating co-learners to project their voices. Yet, we managed to complete our first anthology, thanks to the relationships that we fostered with our young co-learners and the tireless commitment of our partnering teachers who kept in touch with the program (Fig. 10.13).

Fig. 10.13

Excerpts from the student anthology

Revolutionizing our Curie-osity (Perteneciente a Nuestra Comunidad)

• Devon M. Christman &
• Alexandria Muller 

The Curie-osity Project was a thriving, locally renowned university partnership program with two local Girls Inc. chapters, one within a few miles of the university and the other more than 10 miles away in the center of the city. The program during 2019–2020 involved 26 Girls Inc. members in Grades 4-6 as well as eight members of a new teen branch. The demographic landscape of original and teen programs matched those of the previously featured CBL programs; more than half of our young colleagues identified as Latinx/Chicanx. During this eventful year, we sought to continue our award-winning work in connecting our young co-learners, who we often refer to as Curie-ositers, with university scholars, STEM professionals, artists, and community leaders. We planned to engage our 26 elementary Curie-ositers in another co-authoring, bilingual project eventually published under the title, STEMinists in the Wild: Exploring life on a changing planet (https://www.cbleducation.org/work-by-youth). This book publication was a culmination of a year-long research and writing effort of six women and nonbinary scientists and engineers within our university community who were studying the impacts of climate change. The 26 elementary Curie-ositers were the co-authors while the eight near-peer teens acted as research mentors, editors, and illustrators (Fig. 10.14). All partnering co-learners visited laboratories on campus weekly to interview professionals and explore what it is like to be part of a university community. We encouraged young colleagues to ask questions about everything they wondered or noticed during their visits: How many people work here? When did you know that you wanted to be a scientist? Did anyone ever doubt you? What do you like most about your job? Hence, we encouraged our Curie-ositers to be, well, curious about our professional community. Our participating STEM professionals with diverse expertise (marine biology, microbiology, chemistry, and engineering) expressed glee in seeing their younger selves exploring data and looking through microscopes while asking endless lists of questions.

Fig. 10.14

Cover of book co-authored by Curie-ositers

Our program activities were centered around the CBL principle of belonging. The more young co-learners feel like important, contributing members of a community, the greater their sense of belonging, in our case to the STEM community on our campus. Our thinking about notions of belonging was informed by research on supporting marginalized groups such as LGBTQIA youth and students of color (e.g., Ezikwelu, 2020; Ratts et al., 2013); combating stereotypes that inhibit cultural and gender inclusivity in STEM learning (Master et al., 2016; Nation et al., 2019); and fostering a sense of belonging in online learning communities (Lowenhaupt & Hopkins, 2020; Xie et al., 2020). A typically expected outcome across such studies is academic achievement and the value of inclusive efforts to ensure postsecondary success (e.g., DeNicolo, 2019; Greenwood & Kelly, 2019). However, for CBL programs like the Curie-osity Project, intellectual growth is secondary to our goal of embracing and appreciating our young co-learners as they are. While programmatic activities are collaborative, each individual plays a valuable role. If they were absent during a particular session, we let our younger Curie-ositers know that we missed them.

During Fall 2019 and Winter 2020, we designed activities with the intention to foster a sense of membership within the university’s scientific community. We started with initial introductory meetings at the partnering sites in order to clarify interests and experiential knowledge. We used this information to organize our Curie-ositers into small-group configurations, matching them with undergraduate co-learners with similar interests and backgrounds (Fig. 10.15). Our weekly sessions began with team-building activities; each of the Curie-osity groups, for example, created a flag that reflected the shared interests and identities of group members. Each team crafted a set of interview questions for their assigned featured STEM professional that approximated their interests, hence increasing a sense of affinity and sense of belonging. Young co-learners assumed the role of lead researchers, helping to equalize the balance of power and experience during the weekly visits by becoming important members of a STEM community that were largely invisible to public audiences (Nation et al., 2019).

Fig. 10.15

The Curie-osity project

During this period, CBL program leaders and teen co-learners were also developing a new initiative called the Youth Summit, which was funded by UC Links to take place in May 2020. The purpose of the Youth Summit (YS) was to provide a culminating event for members across all CBL programs to learn from one another and collectively celebrate all that was accomplished during the year. In between tours with STEM professionals, teen colleagues worked together to develop marketing materials for the YS event, including logo and T-shirts designs. Figure 10.16 features the logo designed by our organizers.

Fig. 10.16

Creating the youth summit logo

Program closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 prompted us to strategize next steps for maintaining the Curie-osity program and alternatives for our YS gathering. As it became clear that we would not be returning to campus anytime soon, leaders from Girls Inc. and Curie-osity agreed to cancel the program for the remainder of the academic year. While Girls Inc. transitioned to serve as a food distribution center for the broader community, our university team worked on the completed initial drafts for our book publication. We also used the additional time and space to think about the inaugural YS gathering scheduled to take place in May 2020.

Similar to the previously mentioned CBL programs, our efforts to connect entered virtual territory; Girls Inc. leadership asked the Curie-osity team for support in providing asynchronous science and art activities for the younger girls as well as virtual activities for teens and undergraduate co-learners. We set up blog sites and shared various home-grown tasks (e.g., coloring book pages and video guides for home experiments) through the CBL newsletter (Fig. 10.17). Girls Inc. leadership expressed appreciation for our efforts to connect with their young members. However, we soon learned from the regional program director that the organization was facing significant economic challenges, prompting a downsizing of operations and staff. This director soon left the organization along with other key program leaders and staff members. In losing such leadership, our university team essentially lost contact with Girls Inc. and our Curie-ositers.

Fig. 10.17

Coloring page from a CBL newsletter issue

We learned a few valuable lessons from the loss of our partnership. First, we learned that a program can end at a moment’s notice regardless of previous successes or how much the broader community may benefit from it. We also learned that a sense of belonging must sustain institutional shifts and as such, we became aware of the importance of conveying through all programmatic actions that all youth are important members of our community, that the university can be a place for all who are curious, creative, and passionate about protecting our Earth. Such a beacon must be able to withstand the shifting of partners and programs. And finally, as other CBL coordinating teams learned, a sustainable community-based program must effectively translate across modalities and spaces, particularly when we are limited to remote (virtual) connections.

We reconfigured our team of undergraduate mentors into two complementary efforts: research and community outreach. Having a cohort of up to nine undergraduates focused mainly on research enabled us to dig into data records (survey responses, creative works, recorded interviews, etc.) spanning 4 years of programming. The pause in our partnership opened an opportunity to engage in a comprehensive retrospective with our undergraduate colleagues that was not previously feasible due to the demands of ongoing programming. Prior to the onset of the pandemic, undergraduates took part in various research-related tasks, but now we had the time and space to engage our team from the very beginning. The program leader (Diana) led a series of virtual discussions about the development of research questions, theoretical frameworks that celebrate the experiential knowledge of youth, and analytic approaches that align with such frames. What transpired was 15 conference presentations about a range of topics, such as the benefits of STEM-related programming for youth (e.g., Clemens et al., 2020), and particularly for girls and nonbinary students (Chen et al., 2020). We believe that such deep involvement in research fostered a stronger sense of belonging among our undergraduate team members who are often relegated to isolated research tasks without mentoring support (Chamely-Wiik et al., 2020). Team members expressed appreciation for such research mentorship that inspired four to pursue graduate studies after graduation.

Our community outreach team involved 19 undergraduates over the course of three academic quarters who joined brainstorming sessions on how we could resurrect the Youth Summit event that was canceled in Spring 2020. We had a new goal: designing a meaningful, virtual experience for youth to share their knowledge and experiences, learn from others, and have fun (Fig. 10.18). These brainstorming sessions led to the creation of the first University-Community Links Youth Summit, an online space for global youth to interact with their community and learn about how others are making change in their communities. The inaugural UC Links-sponsored Youth Summit on May 20, 2021, hosted 50 participating youth and community partners from across the United States, South Korea, and Japan over a virtual platform. (Watch the Youth Summit 2021 video here: https://uclinks.berkeley.edu/chapter10.) Over the course of 2 hours, youth shared community values in their native languages, played online drawing and guessing games, discussed stewardship efforts in the local environment, explored the ocean in a Nature Near You session, and let loose at a virtual dance party. We also built an online platform (https://uclinksyouthsummit.carrd.co) for UC Links partners living in time zones that precluded real-time participation. The community response to the Youth Summit affirmed our hopes for making the Youth Summit a yearly event for youth affiliated with all our University Community Links partners.

Fig. 10.18

Taking turns drawing and guessing images during the 2021 Youth Summit

The efforts we made to offer a meaningful experience for virtual attendees in 2021 were helpful in developing a hybrid Youth Summit event on May 27, 2022. Local youth members and their families were invited to a three-hour, in-person celebration featuring arts and crafts, aquatic touch tanks from our campus-housed aquarium, presentations from young co-learners, a catered dinner, and a dance party. During this in-person event, participants from across California and beyond participated virtually in events. In-person attendees acted as youth ambassadors for virtual attendees, managing live-streaming portals (i.e., operating Zoom rooms via iPads) to the opening ceremony, which involved introductions, a smudging and blessing from two graduate students with native roots. Ambassadors also provided virtual tours of the in-person presentations, craft room, and touch tanks. (Watch the Youth Summit 2022 video here: https://uclinks.berkeley.edu/chapter10.) The life and energy brought to the Youth Summit through participating youth and UC Links partners created a feeling of community and sense of belonging that all CBL programs strive to achieve. This sense of belonging was aptly described by a caregiver of a youth attendee:

it was a wonderful sight to see the kids so excited and so proud, running around with smiles on their faces. I had the pleasure of witnessing their presentations, and was in awe of these young children standing up in front of a crowd, talking about their research. What an incredible opportunity they were given.

While the evolution of our work was unanticipated, our journey was nevertheless a priceless experience, learning what we can accomplish as a community that values all its members. What started as the Curie-osity Project for young elementary students expanded to involve leadership roles from teens as well as near-peer undergraduates. Our consolation for losing our connections with the local Girls Inc. chapter turned out to be an even greater prize—we found a way to make visible and celebrate the accomplishments of youth who were previously unaware what peers from other programs were learning and creating. We redirected our efforts to develop the Youth Summit, an all-inclusive celebration of belonging. Moving forward, we hope that the Youth Summit only grows to include more of our local community and UC Links family around the world.

Discussion

Each programmatic story in this chapter contributes to our shared account on how we not only merely sustained but actually strengthened our ability to develop community-based programs that celebrate our young co-learners as equitable, valuable, and knowledgeable members of our community. The stories show our efforts to remain connected with young co-learners during the height of the pandemic, which challenged us to imagine how our principles of agency, co-learning and belonging would look like in virtual spaces. We took stock of what we had–Wi-Fi, Zoom, district-approved email accounts, digital applications, our backyards, and our creativity–and we made use of each resource. Emojis quickly became a communicative lifeline for co-learners featured as black boxes, yet eager to share their understanding. Across three interrelated programs, teams of co-learners sought ways to use their knowledge and expertise, applying tools (Jamboard, Google Forms, 3-D recording equipment, etc.) to create experiences that are in turn shared with the broader community through our CBL newsletter.

A predominant takeaway from all programming efforts was the importance of working with and learning from each other. The Youth Summit served a similar purpose for young co-learners. Fourth-graders from our partnering school listened to digital presentations by co-learners at our Club, asking questions about creatures both mystical and real and ways to know the difference. Sixth-grade co-learners from the school presented their year-long projects to attendees that included university students and faculty. One of the intentions behind the Youth Summit was to foster a sense of belonging for all attendees that was not defined by a single organization or institution. Our community is shaped by our shared purpose and values that center on our young co-learners and the near-peer undergraduate co-learners who are encouraged to explore interests and passions and to collaboratively build new knowledge and innovations that in turn are shared with the broader community.

Each program tour we offer in this chapter demonstrates how a program can be shaped by particular community site interests and ways of being, learning, and creating together while also contributing to a shared vision with other program sites. We banded together during turbulent times of intense isolation and socioemotional/economic instability. Hence, to be sensitive to and inclusive of community interests and values doesn’t mean that a university team led and facilitated by a single faculty member has to stretch themselves to uncomfortable degrees. Youth-based programming that is designed to involve community input in planning and shaping goals and activities can be challenging, but such efforts are also life-giving. Warmth seeped into Zoom rooms, displaying heart emojis, fantastical backgrounds (when bandwidth allowed), and chat messages sharing gratitude in multiple languages. Belonging is the cornerstone of CBL; before any efforts to explore, research, create, and so on, we connect. We listen. We see our younger selves and we celebrate how lucky we are to be learning from and with our co-learners. We show our appreciation by listening, encouraging, and building on their thoughts, which in turn strengthen the mutual trust needed for a thriving, active community. This is how we navigate the turbulent waters that will continue to surround us.