UBP is a community science project that integrates Avian Ecology, Mexican-American Studies, and Indigenous Studies through community engaged research on local and culturally significant birds.
One of the ways we do this is by engaging students and community members in bi-monthly community science meetings that help integrate each content-based workshop (Avian Ecology; MAS & birds; Indigenous Studies & birds).
During these community science meetings, the UBP project team discusses research, reports back on data, and engages students in conversations around project questions, methods, and goals.
As a community science project, we do community-engaged research that elevates local experts and place-based issues to reclaim relational accountability to birds and their habitats. We’re committed to antiracist social action that restor(y)es cultural ways of knowing around birds and land, elevates multiple ways of knowing, and shares power across communities.
Community Science is distinct from citizen science in that it is defined by projects that:
● “Are linked to social action with aims including protection of human rights and measurable
improvements for communities who face environmental injustices and public health challenges.
● Include community-based participatory research (CBPR), community-engaged research,
community-owned and managed research (COMR), street science, and other participatory
methods aimed to bring social change.
● Elevate local experts and place-based issues above academic experts and publication-driven
research agendas.
● [Commit] to social action and antiracist, decolonizing research praxis aimed at
elevating multiple ways of knowing, engendering trust, and sharing power” (1387).
See Cooper, C., et. al. (2021). “Inclusion in Citizen Science: The Conundrum of Rebranding.” Science: Policy Forum, 372, no. 6549: pp. 1386-1388. DOI: 10.1126/science.abi6487
