2023 Sustainable Communities Global Action Research Project: Youth Inspiring Truth, Trust, & Hope
The Project
On May 17, the Smithsonian Science Education Center held its last session of the 2023 Sustainable Communities Global Action Research Project: Youth Inspiring Truth, Trust, & Hope. In this program, the Smithsonian Science Education Center assembled a group of high school students ages 14-19 to participate in a 12-week global collaborative action research program based on the Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project's Sustainable Communities! How will we help our community thrive? community research guide. Through this virtual program, young people produced an action project video related to an issue of sustainability in their community that was shared at the 2023 Nobel Prize Summit on May 24-26, 2023. In addition, 3 students were selected to be interviewed about their projects in the online exclusive portion of the Summit by host Sumi Somaskanda, anchorwoman for BBC in Washington, DC.
With 123 applications submitted from all over the globe, the program started on March 1, 2023, with 80 students selected for participation across 17 states in the U.S. and 11 countries around the world. Students virtually convened on Zoom weekly and on Moodle asynchronously, where they delved into the guide content, learned from subject matter experts, collaborated with one another, and ultimately identified a problem in their community that they wish to take action on.
Watch the Student Videos
The Session
On May 26, the Smithsonian Science Education Center, in collaboration with the Nobel Foundation, hosted a session entitled "Trust in Science: The Importance of Education in Developing an Evidence-Based Worldview" at the 2023 Nobel Prize Summit in Washington, DC. Led by Dr. Carol O'Donnell, Director of the Smithsonian Science Education Center, this session featured a suite of speakers from both the formal and informal education sectors who collectively focused on addressing and discussing the importance of education to help society meet the increasing demands of navigating complex information in today's environment, as well as examined why education systems must adapt to meet the demands of the future, and how young people are an integral part of this process.
In addition, the Smithsonian Science Education Center's Heidi Gibson discussed the SSEC's most recent publication Data, Discourse, and Development: Building a sustainable world through education and science communication, and was able to highlight several student projects from the Smithsonian Science Education Center's 2023 Sustainable Communities Global Action Research Project: Youth Inspiring Truth, Trust, & Hope program, showcasing the ways in which students make meaning of the data that they collect in their own communities. The Summit concluded with a panel of experts facilitated by Dr. O'Donnell, including Andreas Schleicher (OECD & PISA), Jonathan Osborne (Stanford University), Saul Perlmutter (Nobel Prize laureate, University of Berkeley, Critical Thinking Project), Anita Krishnamurthi (Board of Nobel Prize Outreach & Afterschool Alliance), and Ann Friedman (Planet Word).
Smithsonian Solution Session Nobel Prize Summit 2023.mp4 from Jakob Rubenson on Vimeo.
The session was attended by 125 in-person attendees, as well 400 participants online.