Understanding, teaching, and employing model-based reasoning (MBR) in socio-environmental synthesis (EMBeRS)
The EMBeRS project will tackle the challenge of understanding, teaching, and employing learning processes that enable diverse disciplinary perspectives to be integrated into more comprehensive conceptual frameworks. Our hypothesis is that the process of constructing integrated conceptual frameworks generates the “embers” of the mind that enable more effective conduct of interdisciplinary and actionable socio-environmental science. In this project, we will focus on material artifacts and model-based reasoning (MBR), well known in learning and cognitive sciences as fundamental mechanisms for generating new conceptual understanding. The results of this synthesis activity will generate new conceptual models of socio-environmental synthesis that will be used to develop pedagogical designs in classes taught by EMBeRS participants and disseminated broadly.