This RII Track-1 project will enable the design and development of acceptable solutions to pressing societal problems. The working hypothesis of this project is that socially sustainable solutions to complex societal problems will be found at the intersections of related but distinct problem areas, where diverse stakeholders can find agreement because the array of issues cuts across the usual narratives that frame social conflict. Oklahoma EPSCoR will employ a social science framework that heavily incorporates social dynamics theory and is informed by theories of public policy learning to invest in science at the intersections of four key focus areas: changing seasonal to sub-seasonal weather patterns, variable and marginal quality water supplies, shifting terrestrial water and carbon dynamics, and sustainable water and energy infrastructure. A social science framework will provide for systematic and iterative engagement between key stakeholders, the public, and technical focus area teams to identify convergent solutions. This project will be administered by Oklahoma State University in collaboration with five other Oklahoma academic institutions, which include two Minority Serving Institutions: University of Oklahoma, University of Tulsa, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Langston University (a Historically Black College or University (HBCU)), and the College of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation (a Tribal College). Additional project partners include regional universities and community colleges, the Noble Research Institute, an agriculture-focused non-profit organization, and the Oklahoma Museum Network. The use of social science to generate solutions within a polarized environment has high potential for broader impacts, because it addresses needs that are relevant to Oklahoma’s citizens. The resulting solutions developed will benefit the quality of life for Oklahomans associated and unassociated with the project. In addition, the project will promote STEM education across the jurisdiction and broaden the participation of underrepresented populations in STEM disciplines.
This RII Track-1 Oklahoma EPSCoR project will develop and test socially sustainable, science-based solutions for wicked (complex) problems at the intersection of land use, water availability, and infrastructure. The unifying research question is whether science-based assessment, coupled with the engagement of Oklahoma opinion leaders and citizens, can result in development of socially sustainable solutions. Oklahoma EPSCoR will identify how both problems and potential solutions for water use, landscape-carbon cycle, and energy and water infrastructure are interlinked in complex ways by focusing on four challenges addressed by the focus areas: 1) improving the knowledge of atmospheric and land processes that lead to seasonal to sub-seasonal events and increasing understanding of predictive skillsets to enable the creation of outlook forecasts; 2) understanding terrestrial carbon and water dynamics across Oklahoma to identify potential options for increasing carbon uptake and storage while sustaining water supply by using an Earth Systems Science approach to quantify water and carbon dynamics at a statewide scale; 3) developing new engineering technologies and modeling schemes for the reuse and improved understanding of water treatment efficiencies; and 4) developing an aggregated resilience model for interdependent infrastructure systems that includes the effects of uncertainties in severe weather, weather extremes, wildfires, and induced seismicity on networks, and network-to-network interdependencies. Technical focus area teams will engage in a systemic, iterative process of conducting science with added direction from social narratives that citizens, opinion leaders, and scientists use to comprehend and evaluate potential research impacts. The project will also conduct education, outreach and broadening participation activities that include: 1) STEM curriculum and training for K-12 teachers; 2) non-traditional STEM educator training; 3) K-12 student STEM education, and 4) growing of Oklahoma’s citizen science network. These activities will address the state’s STEM needs and reach thousands of Oklahoma trainees, teachers and citizens.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
