Connect Youth with Science and Data using Art

Apply for a Fellowship and collaborate with scientists, museums, and fellow teachers. 

Applications accepted through October 14, 2024. 

  Click Here to Apply

CU Science Discovery, in partnership with the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (PACES), is now accepting applications for a new paid Fellowship through the University of Colorado Boulder called Data + Art + Science + Community Activities for Youth (DASCAY). This Fellowship is designed for Colorado's art, science, math, and engineering teachers (grades 5-12) interested in collaborating with scientists, fellow teachers, and museums or libraries to develop exciting and creative ways for youth to delve into data about environmental issues.

Each cohort will be comprised of: 

  • 2 teachers from the same school:
    • 1 art teacher
    • 1 science, math or engineering teacher 
  • 1 university scientist (faculty, graduate students, and researchers in a variety of environmental science fields)
  • 1 local museum or library partner

This community of learners will work together to develop data-driven art and science activities for use in their classrooms and by the general public at a museum or library, working to achieve the primary objective of this program – to connect art, science, data and place-based learning that addresses complex social and environmental issues while developing strong relationships among teachers, communities and university scientists. 

Who is eligible to apply? 

  • Colorado public school teachers in grades 5-12; both rural and urban teachers are welcome to apply. Meetings with scientists and CU partners will be held via Zoom.
  • Art, science, math and engineering teachers (must apply in a team of one art and one STEM teacher). 
  • Teachers with a strong interest in the program’s approach: Integrating data, art and science to grapple with research datasets and place-based environmental issues. 
  • Teachers who enjoy collaborating and co-designing.

Program benefits for teachers:

  • $2,000 stipend for each teacher participant and additional funds for materials and travel as needed.
  • 2 or more Continuing Education units.
  • Develop hands-on, art and science-focused ways to grapple with real data, and address the need for students to develop data literacy across the curriculum.
  • Form relationships with scientists, fellow teachers, and community partners.
  • Gain confidence in engaging with key environmental and social issues affecting and connecting communities in the West—from fire and air quality to drought and water quality in urban and rural locations, and changing global climate.
  • Amplify recognition of teachers as experts and contributors to community-wide learning and resilience.

Time commitment teacher Fellows should expect:

  • Phase 1: November 2024 – May 2025 
    • Approximately 20 hours of work (approximately 13 hours of orientation, meetings and workshops; 7 hours of preparation and implementation) 
  • Phase 2: Summer 2025 – Fall 2025
    • Approximately 20 hours of preparation work and meetings. Implementation work is not included, as it will depend on each teacher team. 

Art + Science + Community Activities for Youth is a program of the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship and CU Science Discovery, with additional support from the Boulder County Arts Alliance. For questions about this program please contact Lisa Schwartz (303-735-6222) or Alex Rose.

contributors standing in front of tempestry

family talking to scientist

student doing yarn activity

child talking to scientist

person looking at tabletop activity

attendee looking through microscope as scientist looks on

Timeline and important dates: 

  •  2024 Fellowship Application Process: 
    • August 5 – Teacher application period opens  
    • October 14 – Teacher applications due  
    • October 21 – Notification of acceptance into program 
    • October 25 – Deadline to communicate acceptance of fellowship 
  • Program Phase 1: November 2024–May 2025 (Note: All cohort meetings will take place via Zoom.) 
    • November 14, 2024, 4–6pm – Fellows Cohort Orientation  
      • Who attends: CU program leads, teachers, scientist and museum/library 
      • Purpose: Overview of program and participants 
      • Template introduced for art-science-data activity
    • November 2024 – January 23, 2025 – Teachers and Scientist Partners Meeting 
      • Who attends: Teachers and scientist
      • Purpose: Get to know each other and discuss interests, data and ideas for activities. Narrow down possible datasets to use for art-science-data activity development. 
      • Teachers will schedule a 1:1 meeting with their scientist partner. It should take place before the January cohort meeting. A template will be provided to guide conversation.  
    • January 23, 2025, 4–6pm – Fellows Cohort Workshop: Telling a Story with Data/Visualizing Data 
      • Who attends: Teachers, CU program leads; Optional attendance: scientist 
      • Purpose: Explore examples of how to do data visualization.
      • Review template and timeline for data-driven art and science activity development and implementation. Add initial ideas into template before January 30 meeting. 
    • January 30, 2025, 4–5:30pm – Teachers and program leads will go over spring schedule plans and share content added to art-science-data activity
    • February 2025 – Individual Team Meeting and Activity Development
      • Who attends: Teachers and scientist
      • Purpose: Teachers schedule with each other and scientists in order to synchronously and asynchronously fill out art-science-data activity template.
    • February 20, 2025, 4–6pm – Activity template due to program leads
    • March – April 2025 – Teachers implement activity in their classrooms 
    • April 10, 2025, 4–5:30pm – Phase 1 Feedback and Phase 2 Ideation
      • Who attends: Teachers 
      • Purpose: Share feedback on phase 1. Review template and timeline for phase 2 art-science-data activity development and implementation. 
    • May 15, 2025, 4–6pm – Phase 2 Orientation and Workshop  
      • Who attends: Teachers and museum/library partners.
      • Template and plan for activities will be provided.
  • Program Phase 2: Summer 2025 – Fall 2025 (Note: All cohort meetings will take place via Zoom.) 
    • Summer 2025: Teacher teams will develop plans for a place-based art-science-data activity representative of a local issue and using a local dataset, and they will create a prototype art-science-data artifact derived from the activity. Science and museum or library partners will support activity development. They will advise on data collection and analysis plans, as well as pedagogical approaches and activities. 
    • June – August 2025
      • Teacher teams meet on their own to develop and plan activities. Approximately eight hours over 2-3 meetings. 
      • Teacher teams connect with scientist partner and get feedback on data collection (or dataset) and analysis. Approximately two hours over 1-2 meetings. 
      • Teachers connect with your museum/library partner to plan for hands-on museum or library exhibition. Approximately 2-3 hours over 1-2 meetings.
      • Fall 2025 — Spring 2026: Activities developed over the summer will be utilized within the teachers’ classrooms, and activities will be featured at a local museum or library. Science fellows and museum or library partners will continue to support activity development where needed.
    • September 2025 – Teacher Meeting  
      • Who attends: CU program leads and teachers 
      • Purpose: Share your timeline and plan with each other
    • November 2025 – Teacher Meeting 
      • Who attends: CU program leads and teachers  
      • Purpose: Planning for the future and sharing outcomes

Program Leads 

Alex Rose from CU Science Discovery and Lisa Schwartz from the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship are the Data-Driven Art Science Community Activities for Youth program leads. Alex and Lisa will be available throughout the program to support teachers and scientist fellows and plan to work closely with all fellows and their community partners. Please contact Alex and Lisa with questions. 

Dr. Alexandra (Alex) Rose is an education and outreach professional with appointments through CU Science Discovery (University of Colorado Boulder’s Division of Continuing Education), the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) and the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department. Her work is focused on communicating the research resulting from two long-term National Science Foundation grants focused on the impacts of humans and climate change on the ecology of the Colorado alpine (Niwot Ridge LTER) and the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica (McMurdo-Dry Valleys LTER). With this work, Rose teaches a science communication and outreach course for graduate students (EBIO6100) and leads field trips for elementary through high school students focused on snow science, forest ecology and climate change (e.g. Snow School, Casey to Cal-Wood, the Mountain Research Experience, Forests and Fires Summer Research Experience and Crest View BioBlitz). She is also passionate about "data literacy" and using data-driven art projects to engage reluctant science learners in data analysis.  

Dr. Lisa Schwartz is a community program manager at the University of Colorado Boulder Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship. She has a doctorate in education from the University of Arizona and was a postdoctoral researcher and research director in the CU Boulder School of Education on a MacArthur Digital Media and Learning project before joining the office in 2016. Schwartz has more than 20 years of experience as a community-engaged scholar, educational researcher, social scientist and K-12 and university educator. She leads the Colorado Art Science Environment (CASE) Fellows program. CASE fellows are eight teams of artists, from across Colorado, and CU Boulder Scientists who collaborated to create an exhibition, for the Colorado State Capitol and now on tour throughout Colorado, that tells the story of how Coloradans are experiencing interrelated challenges of fire, drought, and water and air quality in their communities. Through her work on STEAM and multimodal literacy education efforts in Arizona and Colorado, Schwartz has worked with universities, nonprofits, K-12 schools and non-dominant communities to explore connections between people and place and biological and cultural diversity. Since 2018 she has also developed and led the Engaged Arts and Humanities Scholars program, now a collaboration with the CU Boulder Center for Humanities and the Arts.  

Affiliates

Katya Schloesser is an Education and Outreach Associate at the Center for Education, Engagement and Evaluation (CIRES). She is currently leading the Hazard Education Awareness & Resilience Task Force (HEART Force) project. Before joining CIRES Education and Outreach, Katya was most recently a middle school earth science teacher at Gunnison Middle School. Before becoming a classroom teacher, Katya worked for the CU Boulder Office for Outreach and Engagement where she managed the Learn More About Climate program. Additionally, she managed education and outreach for a multidisciplinary research project on hydraulic fracturing, the AirWaterGas Sustainability Research Network. She earned her MA in Geography at CU Boulder studying alpine hydrology, and her BS in Environmental Science and BA in Latin American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She’s a passionate educator who seeks to support K-12 educators to teach research-based, hands-on, engaging climate science curriculum.

Darya Warner teaches photography and art+science collaborative practices at the United States Airforce Academy, Colorado. Warner works at the intersection of art and science by bridging the creative process and growth/connections with human and non-human actors through the prism of Climate Change. Their research explores the Biophilia Hypothesis, also known as “the love of all living things,” as a crucial factor in reconnecting humans and nature via interactive installations, visual displays, photography, sound, time-based media, and bioart in the new form of hybrid matter based on care. They address issues of environmental impact among artists and connect creative processes to earth-conscious practices, and implement sustainable art practices methodology as a part of the educational curriculum. They graduated from the School of Visual Arts (BFA) and got their MFA from University at Buffalo. They have exhibited nationally and internationally and received multiple grants to support their projects.

Scientist Partners 

We are currently recruiting scientist fellows (individual scientists or science labs) from CU Boulder and the McMurdo-Dry Valleys (Antarctica) Long Term Ecological Research team who will partner with teacher teams. To make the best matches, we will not finalize scientist partners until we receive teacher applications. As in prior collaborations, we anticipate involvement from scientists from a variety of disciplines at CU Boulder who are affiliated with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.  

Museum and Library Partners 

Currently, our museum partners are the CU Natural History Museum and the Museum of Boulder. We are in conversation with museums and libraries in other parts of Colorado, and we will update the partner list accordingly. Additional museum or library partners will be local to where participating teachers live.