Grants fund 15 community-engaged research projects

Cornell student and faculty researchers and their community partners will use this year’s Engaged Cornell research grants to study Cornell’s socio-economic impact on Tompkins County, whether mobile research labs effectively engage underrepresented populations, and whether farmer-led research in Malawi influenced student learning and development.

This year’s grants, 15 in all, were announced earlier this month by the Office of Engagement Initiatives.

Nine teams received Grants for Faculty Research on Engagement totaling $380,263 to assess the impact of specific community-engaged teaching, learning and research programs. The following projects received funding:

• Bolstering the New York Dairy Industry aims to strengthen the state’s dairy industry by implementing and assessing key community partnerships, workforce development and producer-through-consumer education.
• Cornell Raptor Program Assessment will be using surveys to understand future opportunities for promoting the conservation of birds of prey.
• An Engaged Anchor Institution is measuring and analyzing Cornell’s socio-economic impact on Tompkins County.
• The Impact of Equitable Community-Engaged Research seeks to understand and document what is needed to achieve more equitable collaborations between science institutions and communities.
• Interactive Child Development Research is investigating the educational and research outcomes of conducting child development research in a museum setting.
• Research Laboratories on the Move will determine if mobile research laboratories effectively engage underrepresented populations in social science research.
• Teaching Programming Through Games aims to improve the way beginners learn fundamental concepts of computational thinking.
• Farmer-led Research in Malawi: Deepening Knowledge of Impact (2017-18 renewal) evaluates how students’ learning and development has been influenced through participation in agroecological research in Malawi.
• Transforming Upstate New York From Rust to Green (2018-19 renewal) evaluates the impact of a university-community partnership to strengthen community resiliency and sustainability in New York state’s Rust Belt.

Six projects received Engaged Undergraduate Research Grants totaling $127,441 to involve undergraduates in hands-on research with community partners. Funded projects are:

• Advanced Cooking Education Program for NYC Youth builds culinary and stress-management skills through a culturally inclusive after-school club. 
• Digital Science Literacy About the Microbial World trains high school students to evaluate online science resources and improve related Wikipedia entries.
• Engaged Research in Coal-Mining Country documents stories of how respectful, collaborative partnerships led to remarkable outcomes in the coal-mining communities of southern West Virginia.
• Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program Assessment measures the effectiveness of nutrition education and outreach at NYC farmers’ markets.
• Future Forests collaborates on a citizen-science effort to examine the health of sugar maples in New Hampshire forests.
• Brain Awareness in Science Education (2018-19 renewal) empowers K-4 students to take charge of their brain development.

Find out more about each project on the Engaged Cornell website.

This story also appeared in the Cornell Chronicle.