...An individual’s social world emerges from, and persists within, their sensory experiences.
Our Goals
Share the joys of birding
Being around and listening to birds is something people find really enjoyable. Birds and nature can be a point of connection across our communities--especially for those who are historically excluded from outreach spaces.
Be communication allies
Fundamentally, science is about perspective taking and expanding our understanding. Science communication depends on flexibly repackaging content. We all need practice in flexible communication!
Co-design inclusive content
Outreach programs in STEM provide powerful opportunities for learning and should be widely available! Support the development of materials made by and for people with disabilities.
Community partnership
Making STEM materials accessible to communities traditionally excluded depends on building strong partnerships with those communities first and continually.
Prioritize Training
Create and incorporate training for STEM Undergraduates and CLO Staff on communicating across differences and developing respectful community partnerships.
Support Kids!
Support Tompkins-County kids with disabilities by providing critical early access to inclusive STEM materials.
Central Frameworks
Participatory Design and Justice-Oriented Teaching
The structure of a Birdsong Program is informed by principles of justice-oriented teaching, in which we aim to recognize and question the traditional power dynamics that exist in learning environments. One key component of justice-oriented teaching is giving participants more agency in the learning process. Through enabling learners to play a more active role in science learning, we hope to see increased effort and engagement in learning as well as better communication and rapport between group members (Nag Chowdhuri et al., 2023).
In practice, how can this be achieved? A Birdsong Program is designed around participatory design, in which users of a product are the ones who design the product (Axelsen et al., 2014). In this case, we design science outreach content for people with disabilities, in partnership with people with disabilities. This process values peoples' tacit knowledge: knowledge that people have through lived experience (Spinuzzi, 2005). Participatory design is an iterative process, in which we explore and identify interests, workshop ideas, and prototype those ideas. As a result, the structure of the program is extremely flexible to allow for this design process: activities are not decided ahead of time.
Nag Chowdhuri, M., King, H., Godec, S., & Archer, L. (2023). Towards justice-oriented science teaching: Examining the impact of the science capital teaching approach on teachers. London Review of Education, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.14324/LRE.21.1.37
Spinuzzi, C. (2005). The Methodology of Participatory Design. Technical Communication, 52(2), 163–174.
Axelsen, L. V., Mygind, R., & Bentsen, P. (2014). A Participatory Design Framework for Developing Interactive Exhibitions. The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, 7, 1–16.
Affinity Spaces
Affinity spaces are informal social environments in which people with common interests gather and socialize (Gee, 2003). Members of the affinity group are not expected to participate in a given way; participation is voluntary and can vary in form. As opposed to a rigid hierarchical structure, in affinity spaces knowledge is distributed amongst the members of the group.
A Birdsong Program is designed as an affinity space in which people interested in birds, animal social behavior, and communication can explore there interests together. We aim to foster a club-like social environment as opposed to a classroom-like one; we achieve this by enabling participants to engage and participate on their own terms, and letting the interests of individuals guide the direction of the group.
Gee, J. P. (2004). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Palgrave Macmillan.
Rich Communicative Environments
We aim to enrich A Birdsong Program by encouraging a rich communicative environment in the affinity space. Rich communicative environments are ones in which participation is voluntary (i.e., participants are given the freedom to participate as they like), complex (i.e., there are many different forms of communication possible, and encouraged), and optimized (i.e., scaffolded for the specific and changing needs of the individual) (Hengst, 2020). Through fostering rich communicative environments we learn to be much more flexible and effective communicators.
Hengst, J. A. (2020). Designing Rich Communicative Environments in Clinical Spaces. In Understanding everyday communicative interactions: Introduction to situated discourse analysis for communication sciences and disorders. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003034537
Example Semester Timeline
Week 1
Cornell students: introductions, course overview, and setting up reflective journals.
Location: Cornell campus.
Week 2
Cornell students: activity to reflect on how we engage in science outreach.
Location: Museum of the Earth.
Week 3
Cornell students: discuss and reflect on the different methods to assess science outreach programs.
Location: Cornell campus.
Week 4
Cornell and BOCES students: Meet in the classroom and introduce selves, make nametags, get to know each other and share learning goals and interests.
Location: BOCES campus.
Weeks
5 & 6
Cornell and BOCES students: birding-related activities (e.g., learn to use binoculars or meet with educators at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology).
Location: BOCES campus, CLO visitor center, Stewart Park.
Week 7
Cornell students: Debrief, reflective journaling, and propose outreach projects.
Location: Cornell campus.
Weeks
8-12
Cornell and BOCES students: Develop outreach projects.
Location: BOCES campus, CLO visitor center, Stewart Park.
Week 13
Cornell and BOCES students: Refine outreach projects.
Location: BOCES campus.
Week 14
Cornell and BOCES students: Share outreach projects with each other as well as other BOCES classes.
Location: BOCES campus.
Example Outreach Projects
These are activities and materials co-developed by BOCES and Cornell students throughout the Spring '25 semester.
Goal: Tell stories about birds - weaving together fun narratives and real facts and details about different bird species.
Development process: First we realized we a shared interest we had was telling funny stories that might explain the different bird behavior we would observe. This gave us the idea to build fold learning more about birds into a story-telling game. First we tried using bird oracle cards as a prompt for the story-telling. While that worked great, we decided to add more bird facts onto the cards themselves to make it easier to merge the two types of stories. We also made different 'scene' or place settings so that people could select different areas to have tell their story.
Materials developed: We purchased already designed bird oracle cards, which depict real species. We then added additional real bird facts onto these cards, and created laminated 'scenes' depicting different types of ecosystems.
Activity description: In a group, people take turn selecting one or two of the bird oracle cards. They choose a name for their bird characters. Then going around in a circle, they co-create a shared story - choosing different scenes - and weaving together real details about the birds (e.g. a puffins beak visible by its 'glow'). Collectively when a particular story is over, the group decides to shuffle the cards and start again!
Program Assessment
Students in the Birdsong Program learn about and perform a variety of methods of assessment ofoutreach programs. One of the principal methods we use is reflective journaling throughout the semester. Through regular, low-stakes writing entries students are able to engage personally with ideas they encounter during the semester, and see how their understanding deepens and changes (Dukewich & Vossen, 2015).
Another assessment method we utilize is Ripple Effect Mapping, an activity in which participants map out the impactful people, lessons, and other components of a program. This activity enables us to identify who the program affects, what lessons the program helps us learn, and what aspects of the program we see as the most meaningful.
Dukewich, K. R., & Vossen, D. P. (2015). Toward Accuracy, Depth and Insight: How Reflective Writing Assignments Can Be Used to Address Multiple Learning Objectives in Small and Large Courses. Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 8, 97–110. https://doi.org/10.22329/celt.v8i0.4258
Ripple Effect Map, Celia McLean and Nora Prior, Spring '25
Funding for A Birdsong Program
NSF Award 2321788
Integrating Perception and Communication: The Function of Acoustic Fine Structure in Natural Zebra Finch Communication
Engaged Opportunity Grant
Engaged Faculty Fellowship Program
Certificate in Community-Engaged Learning and Leadership
Public Engagement Content Award