Rural, Indigenous, and Latinx communities in the Southwest region of the U.S. share present and future concerns about drought and water availability as these communities face low and inconsistent precipitation. Using a collaborative process, We are Water has designed informal STEM programs and a traveling exhibit for tribal and rural libraries to create opportunities for individuals and families to engage in conversations about their personal and community connections to water. The decision to use a collaborative design process sought to respect and honor the diversity of voices in these communities by enabling them to express their experiences with water in their own words and see their perspectives incorporated in the ensuing programs and exhibit. As an important Drst step, the project conducted a needs assessment, which invited communities to share their perspectives and stories through surveys and interviews. As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded our project team adjusted its approach to ensure the voices of those hardest hit by the pandemic, Indigenous and Latinx communities, were heard. Instead of in-person relationship building as initially planned, the project team pivoted toward a snowball approach to collect one-on-one phone interviews. Findings from surveys and community interviews showed water conservation, water access, water availability, and water quality were common priorities. This project shows how a collaborative process paired with evaluation can be used as tools for community participation for informed decision making in the design of informal educational experiences.

Communities across the Southwestern US are increasingly experiencing major disruptions from a changing climate and natural hazards, such as fire, flood, and drought. With this rise in hazardous events, there is a pressing need to support local education and community resilience efforts around climate change impacts. Teaching climate change can be challenging for educators, given the scientific complexity and the need to disentangle political dimensions surrounding the topic. Climate change and environmental hazards are tangible when their impacts are observed close to home. Grounding science learning in personal experiences provides an entry point for learners to the topic and makes learning relevant. In our experience, place-based learning has proven to be a powerful and transformative experience that unites learners through a shared place. Here we present results from three place-based educational programs that serve rural and tribal communities in the Southwestern US and highlight the common findings across these programs around changes in student beliefs and levels of transformation: 1) an after-school program in which students develop a short film about ways in which climate change impacts their community. The storytelling component of film making allows for culturally-sensitive engagement; 2) an in-class instructional unit focused on increasing community resilience in which students learn about local natural hazards through engaging with authentic data, scenario-based role play games and the development of their own community resilience strategy that students present to local community leaders; and 3) a library-based informal science learning program in the southwestern US where communities engage around water as a scarce and valuable resource and share their common stories around the relevance of water. All three programs share a deep grounding in shared place and culture and offer examples of effective engagement with rural communities.