Exclosure (or what we risk losing).

This is a story of becoming. In this creative non-fiction essay, I share a case study of an informal science program for high school aged youth that took place over 5-weeks one summer in an urban park in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. I conducted observations, interviews, and artifact analysis to explore how youth environmental interest and identity developed through relational processes between human and more-than-human beings. As a participant-observer, I tried to focus my attention on learning about learning. But I kept getting pulled from my research to something bigger, something messier. In my essay, I reflect on what it meant for our small group to become naturalists together, juxtaposing the diversity of our human cultures/histories/languages/selves with the diversity of the park, from the soil to the tree canopy. I then draw intimate connections between the twin losses of biological and cultural diversity. By using narrative storytelling, I invite the reader to come on a journey with me through the story of my own ideas, the ideas of the youth and educators I worked with, and the story of the land itself.

Creating cultural refugia to transform the boundaries of science.

This paper is a reflection on Bobby Habig, Preeti Gupta, and Jennifer Adams' article Disrupting deficit narratives in informal science education: Amplifying community cultural wealth theory to youth learning and engagement. The article examines the significance of community cultural capital and the need for informal STEM institutions to engage more deliberately with the knowledge and lived experiences that youth bring to programs they participate in. In my response, I question whether the informal science institution of study had changed in response to these young people. As a 'science insider,' I explore how research experiences in informal science education institutions such as museums are tightly bounded by and connected with ancient European scientific practices that limit a deep embrace of community cultural wealth. If the aim is for youth to develop their science identities, then these informal science education institutions need to question what kind of science people they are asking youth to become. I consider how informal science education institutions might remake themselves as cultural refugia, where interrogation of the dominant Eurocentric norms of what science is can be challenged and transformed.

Este documento es una reflexión en torno al artículo de Bobby Habig, Preeti Gupta y Jennifer Adams, Disrupting deficit narratives in informal science education: Amplifying community cultural rote theory to youth learning and engagement. El artículo examina la importancia del capital cultural comunitario y la necesidad de que las instituciones informales de STEM se involucren de manera más deliberada con el conocimiento y las experiencias vividas que los jóvenes aportan a los programas en los que participan. En mi análisis, me pregunto si la institución de ciencia informal que estudio ha cambiado en respuesta a estos jóvenes. Como "conocedora de la ciencia," exploro cómo las experiencias de investigación en las instituciones educativas científicas informales están estrechamente vinculadas a antiguas prácticas científicas europeas que limitan una aceptación profunda de la riqueza cultural de la comunidad. Si el objetivo es que los jóvenes desarrollen sus identidades científicas, entonces estas instituciones educativas científicas informales deben preguntarse en qué tipo de personas científicas esperan convertir a los jóvenes. Finalmente, considero cómo las instituciones educativas científicas informales podrían transformarse en refugias culturales, donde las normas eurocéntricas dominantes de lo que es la ciencia pueden ser cuestionadas, desafiadas y transformadas.