The goal of the FOCUSSS project is to engage high school students in a need-to-know pursuit for learning science that leads to the discovery of sustainable resources and practices for use in their communities. The project is a collaboration among Loyola University Chicago, Adler Planetarium, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, and four local, urban high schools to construct student and family activities involving essential science concepts and tools within a sustainability context. Through this project, high school students engage in school and family activities around specific themes related to sustainable resources and practices in their communities, such as the availability and access to nutritious food, the quality of air or availability of clean water resources, the effective use of energy resources, or similar topics. The project intends to help students develop as informed and responsible citizens who utilize the principles and tools of basic science for their decisions and actions. The blended instructional model that deeply involves family and community will be studied for its potential to make formal learning relevant to the lives of children and to the health of the community.
As an exploratory project, the project tests a curriculum design that bridges formal and informal education and draws upon the resources in the community. Students interact with online learning communities that include their teachers, their families, fellow students, and sustainability organizations. Participating teachers are involved in intensive workshops that focus on developing sustainability principles within inquiry-based science curricula and lessons plans. Service projects provide opportunities for students to invite their families to participate and be supported in family workshops at local museums and in site visits to organizations involved in related initiatives. Data collection includes surveys administered to students and participating family members, observations, interviews, classroom assessments, and other open-ended instruments intended to surface themes and related variables. These will inform the design of the materials and activities as well as the assessments.
The project deliverables include fully implemented classroom lessons supported by family projects and online sustainability courses for students and families. The project fosters students and families connecting to their communities, resources and organizations in order to improve the quality of their neighborhoods and to promote individual, family, and public health.
The results of the two-year proof-of-concept FOCUSSS program suggest that participating in an aligned set of FOCUSSS activities that blends formal and informal learning experiences increases pro-environmental behavior. This impact has occurred within a set of urban youth and their families, which include groups underrepresented in the sciences. Additionally, these sets of activities, if students participate, demonstrate behavioral change regardless of cultural background, GPA, or parents' educational level. This further seems to suggest that activities are not biased to one type of group. The only bias identified so far is a selection bias. Because students opt-in, there may already be an initial interest in sustainability science and practices. With such an interest, though, the more students participated, the more change in behavior they demonstrated. As a result, we think this program has unveiled some key ideas ideas around blending formal and informal environments with a consistent focus on science, sustainability, and service. These ideas include: It is important to design a program that targets all of the psycho-social determinants of sustainable behavior: problem awareness, intention to act, perceived behavioral control, attitude, moral norms, internal attribution, and socal norms. Schools and classrooms are a necessary but not sufficient pathway to access the full range of behavioral determinants. Classroom interventions alone do not have a significant impact on behavior, but are critical for initiating problem awareness. Classroom interventions combined with informal family and community interventions have the ability to access the full range of behavioral determinants and thus to positively change student behavior. Empowered youth are able to positively impact their families (and communities) and thus create an iterative cycle that reinforces desired behavior.
