Beyond broader impacts: Finding venues and values that synergistically link academia and community

Background/Question/Methods

Traditional academic culture holds science and scientists somewhat apart from issues that deal with environmental justice. However, the increasing need to bridge the growing divide between science and society, and the emerging imperatives for scientists to carry out broader impacts, has prompted the creation of synergistic public engagement opportunities for scientists. In 2005, I initiated a project in collaboration with The Evergreen State College and the Washington State Department of Corrections (WDOC) to bring science and sustainability into Washington State prisons. This began with a research project to address the non-sustainable practice of harvesting moss from old-growth forests. With the cooperation of the Superintendent of a minimum-security prison, I engaged incarcerated men to help with a moss horticultural research project. The success of this program led to a science lecture series behind bars with scientists from regional universities and agencies; implementing sustainability projects (organic gardens, composting, water catchment, bee-keeping); and helping with conservation projects (captive rearing of endangered frogs, prairie plants, and butterflies) in collaboration with conservation agencies. In 2008, the WDOC provided funds for this work in six other state prisons. With the support of the Informal Science Education program of the NSF, this Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP) is now moving to a national level. 

Results/Conclusions

Why has this project found success with such “strange bedfellows” as incarcerated people, conservationists, and academics? This work has proven to be synergistic, with benefits to all stakeholders. Prison administrators found greater social interactions among inmates, a sense of “contributing to something bigger”, and enhancement of inmates’ soft skills for jobs after release.  Scientists and conservationists found willing hands and minds to rear endangered biota at low cost, terrific broader impacts for NSF grants, and the opportunity to engage with audiences who often have novel outlooks and questions. This project may be applicable to other segments of society that are also “incarcerated” and isolated from nature and science, e.g., residents of assisted living centers, inhabitants of military barracks. The SPP exemplifies the ways that academics can approach the broader impacts requirement – not as a burden imposed by senior science administrators, but rather as an opportunity to reach different kinds of “students” and to link humans who are completely divorced from nature with compelling reasons to learn more about and be better stewards of nature – both when they are behind bars and after they are released.