Recipient Organization
GRAYS HARBOR COLLEGE
1620 EDWARD P SMITH DR
ABERDEEN,WA 98520
Performing Department
Instruction
Non Technical Summary
Higher level fisheries policy discussions often involve a limited number of contributors, within which women are underrepresented. Women are also underrepresented within natural-resources degree programs including fisheries and aquatic sciences. Grays Harbor College, the only WA college on the Pacific Coast, also serves two of the poorest counties in WA State, with women ages 25-44 disproportionately affected. Given the opportunities for work and higher wages in STEM, widening access for area women is would have economic, cultural, and scientific impact. The Grays Harbor College Fish Lab is a community and student driven program where participants have the opportunity to gain experiential learning and informal training in fish hatchery operations, stream monitoring, and resource management.This proposal seeks to both build the capacity of the Fish Lab program and ensure the faculty and students can build their capacity to lead with the use of enhanced experiential learning, mentorship, and direct science-related collaborations. From this comes the potential to develop a deeper breadth of experience and greater opportunities to lead and learn, thereby fostering the development of new skill-sets. Mentorship will support both faculty and student development, not only providing scaffolding to develop more professional self-authorship, but also encouraging open discussion and dismantling of identity contingencies. The Fish Lab project will provide opportunities for nested leadership training throughout the project. Female student representation in leadership roles during outreach at local high schools, hands-on activities at the Fish Lab, and guest lectures will influence the perception of fisheries scientists within the next generation. The Fish Lab at Grays Harbor College has begun to serve as a bridge between generational poverty and unique geography.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
In Washington State, policy discussions related to fisheries management involve a limited number of contributors. Oftentimes, women are not represented in these policy discussions. To illustrate this point, we analyzed the demographics of two policy, management, and enforcement organizations in the Pacific Northwest: The Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC), and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).The PFMC is a regional fishery management council born from the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976. The Magnuson Act established eight regional councils. PFMC has jurisdiction over 317,690 square miles of an exclusive economic zone off Washington, Oregon, and California, and manages fisheries of 119 species of salmon, ground fish, and coastal pelagic species. PFMC is also active in the international fishery management organizations that manage fish stocks migrating through its area of jurisdiction [1]. The sustainable management of fisheries and aquaculture within the Pacific Northwest region is a necessity both from an economic and cultural standpoint. Diverse viewpoints must be included in these discussions, however, and the demographics of PFMC and NOAA Fisheries demonstrate that women are not appropriately represented during these policy discussions. Even within the larger professional fisheries community women are under-represented. Only a quarter of fisheries faculty and scientists are women, and a homophilous leadership can "other" female scientists, and/or leave them with a greater service-workload than their male counterparts. This is a cycle that can perpetuate itself, leading to selective pressure against women in progressively higher leadership roles [2]. This lack of representation at the professional level is directly linked to undergraduate enrollment, where women are underrepresented within the forestry and related natural- resources degree programs, including fisheries and aquatic sciences. Over the past decade, an increasing number of women have enrolled in natural resources undergraduate programs, reaching 41% in 2012 [3]. This remains significantly lower than female representation in undergraduate programs as a whole (57%). Studies have indicated the way young women author their enrollment choices are influenced by communal ideas of who should be taking a certain course [4]. Additional studies indicate that women are less likely to choose natural resources degree programs due to concerns about gender, culture, and work environment, but are likely to be recruited by an environmental stewardship focus [5, 6]. GHC wants to train the next generation of natural- resource managers, scientists, and technicians who will cultivate state, federal, and tribal fisheries industries. The college is in close proximity to an active commercial fisheries industry, three state-run hatcheries, and the Northwest Treaty Tribes fisheries. Because of this GHC is uniquely positioned to offer students a fisheries education that is grounded in policy, economics, and social sciences. The GHC Fish Lab is a volunteer driven program that operates a salmon hatchery and participates in restoration of the surrounding habitat. Through the Fish Lab project, women will have greater accessibility to the necessary recruitment and training to become those managers, and scientists. The Fish Lab project seeks to combat low participation for women in aquaculture by providing accessible opportunities and mentorship to broaden perceptions of what fisheries scientists can look like, and address implicit bias against women through representation. The goal of the Fish Lab project will address the underrepresentation of women in fisheries by further developing student leadership, mentoring, experiential learning, and K12 outreach opportunities. In order to provide these higher-level opportunities, the Fish Lab must first build capacity in its facility and faculty, to build capacity in its students. Objective 1. Build the capacity of the Fish Lab facility. The Fish Lab has been operating successfully on a volunteer basis using limited resources. Because of this, the scope of activities and projects has been limited due to accessibility issues and insufficient tools. To build the capacity of the Fish Lab facility, having the appropriate tools would significantly enhance the accessibility of the program. For example, the Fish Lab currently completes quarterly aquatic species monitoring of two local creeks. However, the only gear available is one seine net and three aquarium nets. Thus, only a small number of participants can be actively involved, specifically those who can afford their own waders, and the precision of the monitoring is significantly limited. By the addition of the appropriate gear, these same activities can be accessible to an increased number of underprivileged participants and carried out with a level of precision expected from a fisheries professional. Thus, by building the capacity of the facilities, we are building capacity to provide higher level training and accessibility to underserved populations.Objective 2. Build capacity within GHC Fish Lab faculty. The faculty involved in the project will gain capacity through the opportunity to develop their own leadership skills as they move the project through its tasks, in addition to professional development in the form of conference attendance and presentations. The project also expands faculty capacity through the development of mentorship with a senior-level professional. Through the efforts of the project, the work with the Educational Assistants, and the leadership of a mentor, the faculty will develop skills to be better able to support the future of the Fish Lab program in its goal to serve underrepresented members of the community.Objective 3. Build capacity within GHC students and community participants. For this project, two students per quarter will serve in leadership roles (Educational Assistants) as guided by a faculty mentor. These students will be responsible for guiding the Fish Lab through the research, educational, and fish rearing activities, along with planning one K12 outreach event per quarter. This builds upon the current model in which a single faculty member is responsible for the entire program on a volunteer-basis, significantly limiting scope and capacity. These students will receive exposure to greater diversity in STEM programs, integration of new marketable skill-sets, the development of leadership abilities, the opportunity for mentoring, the responsibility of coordinating events, and even the development of skills related to successfully competing for funding.1. Pacific Fishery Management Council (2018). Council Operations: Council Staff,2. I. Arismendi, B. Penaluna, Examining diversity inequities in fisheries science: A call to action. BioScience 66 584-591 (2016).3. T. L. Sharik, S. L. Frisk, Student perspectives on enrolling in the undergraduate forestry degree programs in the U.S.. J. Nat. Resour. Life Sci. Educ. 40 160-166 (2015).4. C. D. Allen, M. Eisenhart, Fighting for desired versions of a future self: How young women negotiated STEM-related identities in the discursive landscape of educational opportunity. Journal of the Learning Sciences 26 407-436 (2017).5. M. Rouleau, T. L. Sharik, S. Whitens, A. Wellstead, Enrollment decision-making in U.S. forestry and related natural resource degree programs. Natural Sciences Education 46 (2017).6. T. L. Sharik, R. J. Lilieholm, W. Lindquist, and W. W. Richardson, Undergraduate enrollment in natural resource programs in the United States: Trends, drivers, and implications for the future of natural resource professions. Journal of Forestry 113 538- 551 (2015).
Project Methods
The Fish Lab project employs three strategies. First, experiential learning in a broad number of higher-level skills will provide students with a depth of experience to gain confidence in their skillsets, thereby breaking down identity contingencies. Second, mentorship through advising, leadership activities, professional development, and guidance on career pathways will provide students with assistance and foster retention. Third, direct science-related collaborations will build bridges to the next step and generate higher level opportunities to ensure students are not lost in the "leaky pipeline".Participants in the Fish Lab actively manage a salmon hatchery, restoration of Alder Creek, and the maintenance of the Lake Swano model watershed; this work at the Fish Lab is problem-based at its heart. Over the course of rearing salmon, students must draw upon what they have learned during their STEM coursework to keep the fish alive, such as daily water monitoring and troubleshooting, fish pathology, and calculations to determine feed, capacity, and flow. At the same time, these students also learn skills related to plumbing, carpentry, and welding.Outside the hatchery in Alder Creek, where students are restoring the watershed, they are drawing upon knowledge of environmental sciences that includes plant taxonomy, hydrology, and stream typing. Over the course of their restoration activities (such as removing invasive species) they learn a variety of techniques and how to tailor restoration activities for context. Having begun these activities in 2014, students now see how the landscape has responded.Students also gain experience participating in outreach and science communication by serving as guest speakers during public tours of the Aquaculture Center, K12 outreach, and as presenters at the University of Washington Undergraduate Research Symposium.Efforts. This project builds upon the capacity of the Fish Lab, and further empowers faculty to provide guidance to underserved individuals. In particular, in addition to the acquisition of educational tools that will enhance the experiential learning experiences, professional development for the faculty and Educational Assistants is of tremendous value. For these Fish Lab influencers, everything learned gets passed on to the greater participant pool. This not only includes subject matter learning gained from working with field experts or from conferences, but also leadership skills and equity mindset developed through capacity building.Capacity building from this project also makes it possible to bring in a more diverse pool of experts in fisheries and environmental sciences to Guest Host the Fish Lab. By showcasing additional scientists, the Fish Lab will be exposing the participants to a greater variety of thought and techniques, along with an assortment of potential career pathways.Finally, the project makes possible a scaffolding of leadership including Educational Assistants. With this system in place, not only will the students have more opportunities for leadership, but it will also expand the potential for K12 outreach activities and assist in the management of a larger participant pool.Evaluation. Data for each outcome associated with this project will be collected, evaluated, then shared and discussed with an independent evaluator as described below.Outcome: Increasing the number of students participating in the Fish Lab by 20%.Data Collection: Fish Lab participants are signed into a notebook log for each event. The baseline number of participants logged during the previous two years was 200 participants. The notebook log will be consulted on a yearly basis to determine the number of participants, calculating an increase in participation from this baseline.Outcome: Increase the number of Fish Lab participants able (with sufficient gear) to participate in an event at one time by 100%.Data Collection: The Fish Lab currently has three sets of gear appropriate for regular field work, and one set of waders appropriate for stream monitoring available for participants who are unable to provide their own. A notebook log will be created and maintained for participants to sign out gear during events. Because this gear was donated recently, and was in need of repairs, it has only been used by participants for one event. The baseline for this data-set will, therefore, be considered 4, and the log will be consulted to determine change from this baseline.Outcome: Increase the number of student identified aquaculture industry "skill-sets" by 20%.Data Collection: The baseline for this data will be determined by quantifying the types of skill-sets for which students had the opportunity to train during the 2017/2018 academic year. For this number, one point will be awarded for each event during which an aquaculture skill-set was utilized. This number will be compared to numbers derived from events held during the funding period.Outcome: Increase the number of professional development experiences Fish Lab-related faculty attended by 50%.Data Collection: In previous years, the Fish Lab-related faculty attended an average of one professional development experience per year. This data is collected by the Vice President for Instruction and will continue to be collected as part of post-tenure review.Outcome: Facilitate one faculty exchange per year.Data Collection: Evidence of this faculty exchange will be documented with a short summary of the site visits.Outcome: Increase overall number of underrepresented students in coursework related to natural resources by 20%.Data Collection: The number of natural resources students is regularly collected by the GHC Office for Institutional Research.Outcome: Increase the number of academic or employment related contacts each participant has over a year by 100%.Data Collection: Previous records of professional contacts have been reported in the Fish Lab Newsletter, however this year open documentation of our events has been moved to a Facebook page. The participation and number of professional contact events will be drawn from the participant sign in log, along with the event documentation.