Ready, Set, Resilience

Hurricane Dorian, which made landfall in Ocracoke, caused water damage in Carteret County and added to the community’s generalized hurricane anxiety.

Instructional Coach, Carteret County Public schools

• We had no major hurricanes in 2020. However, school was disrupted as the COVID-19 pandemic began and school was held remotely until the end of the semester. 
• There were no school-based camps and very little summer programming available to families in 2020. 

• The Community Science team met with Ava Bryant, Sedricka Courman, and Dre Nix from the Boys & Girls Club about reinstating STEM outreach programming that had been on hold from COVID-19. They told us that STEM programming wasn’t what they needed, but they needed mentors to help kids whose lives had been disrupted by the hurricanes and pandemic. 
• While the Community Science team had experience in STEM and environmental education, we needed assistance to help prepare Duke students to be generalized mentors. So we reached out to our colleague, Dr. Patrick Jeffs (CEO of The Resiliency Solution) for help. With his resiliency experience, we co-developed a training program for Duke Marine Lab students to mentor local youth.
• Curriculum Work: We began a series of online resilience training workshops (Ready, Set, Resilience) on personal resilience and multicultural mentoring. 

• Curriculum Co-Creation: In one of the workshops, we had a breakout group asking students to draw connections between resilience in nature and the tenets of personal resilience. We were amazed at all of the examples they thought of and knew we could expand this concept into something bigger.

• Curriculum Work: We continued with the Ready, Set, Resilience training and mentoring, and updated the program using feedback from the mentors and Boys and Girls Club staff.

• Duke was still remote, so there were no in-person summer camps or STEM Pathways high school programs.

• Team Expansion: We welcomed a second cohort of Duke Marine Lab students as resilient mentors and those students engaged with Boys & Girls Club kids through after-school mentoring.

• Funding: We received grants from the Duke Office of Durham and Community Affairs (grant to Drs. Lisa Campbell, Leslie Babinski, and Liz DeMattia) to modify our mentor training to accommodate teen mentors, including STEM Pathways student scientists for the upcoming summer.

• Funding: We also received a NC SeaGrant (with Dr. Kathryn Stevenson from NC State) to co-create a middle school curriculum with Carteret County Public school teachers based on the resilience mentor training program.  

• Team Expansion: Dr. Liz DeMattia ran the Duke Marine Lab  DukeEngage  service learning program in person for the first time since COVID-19 began. 
• Fables: As a way to modify Ready, Set, Resilience training for high school students, Rory McCollum and the DukeEngage students drafted short fables to explain the tenets of personal resilience using examples from nature. These fables were based on nature and resilience discussions in the first round of the Ready, Set, Resilience training program.

• Team Expansion: We created a Curriculum Advisory Board to create a resilience-based middle school curriculum by bringing together scientists, resilience experts, and CCPS teachers. 
• Curriculum Advisory Board Meeting #1: We brainstormed curriculum ideas and created a pilot workshop.

• Team Expansion: The Community Science team was able to re-start the STEM Pathways program and we trained high schoolers to become resilience mentors.

• Curriculum Advisory Board Meeting #2: The curriculum team presented the draft curriculum to the group for feedback and helped support teachers to pilot the material in their classrooms. 

• Curriculum Advisory Board Meeting #3: We received and implemented more feedback on our draft curriculum based on trials in the classroom. This allowed the team to highlight what was working and what needed more support.

• Curriculum Co-Creation: We planned and held story walks (interactive walks with multiple stations where our resilience fables are read) with Down East MS and Morehead City MS. A student at Beaufort MS created a play based on the “Ollie the Orca” fable, which the school performed for elementary school students.

• Curriculum Co-Creation: Rory McCollum presented her Master’s project on the co-creation process of creating Ready, Set, Resilience. Her data showed that the process of co-creation was important to the teachers, and the topic of resilience resonated with middle school classrooms. In addition, her research highlighted that middle schoolers, students, and teachers found the resilience curriculum activities meaningful and helpful with community building. 

• Curriculum Advisory Board Meeting #4: We interviewed teachers for feedback and found that they wanted to:

1. Position the fables at the heart of the curriculum. 
2. Further align the curriculum with NC educational standards.
3. Incorporate more physical resilience activities into the curriculum. 

• Funding: Drs. Lisa Campbell, Lesilie Babinski and Liz DeMattia received a grant from Duke’s Office of Durham and Community Engagement to expand the resilience program to Durham Public Schools (DPS). 

• Fables: DukeEngage 2023 created an additional five fables. 

• Curriculum Work: Using data collected and analyzed by Drs. Kelsy Tayne and Kathryn Stevenson, we held a curriculum work week to review the new fables, create a Resilience Activity Book, and develop Ready, Set, Resilience playing cards. 

• Fables: We hired Susanna Kilingberger to work with the fable authors and edit the fables into a cohesive book.

• Curriculum Co-Creation: We connected with Torry Bend (Faculty in Duke’s Theatre Studies Department) to discuss the potential of public art performances and puppetry based on the resilience fables.

• Curriculum Advisory Board Meeting #5: We refined the curriculum that now centered the resilience fables as the first entry point for teachers. Based on teacher feedback, this new iteration allowed teachers the opportunity to pick and choose portions of the curriculum that work for them, and allowed teachers agency in deciding how to create a resilience learning experience that worked for their classroom. The new iteration of the curriculum aligned with North Carolina’s educational standards. Additionally, we shared draft versions of the Ready, Set, Resilience: Activity Book and the Ready, Set, Resilience cards for feedback.

• Team Expansion: We held personalized workshops with Durham Public Schools (Sherwood Githens Middle School, Lakewood Montessori Middle School, and the Durham Public Schools Hub Farm) to onboard additional teachers into the Curriculum Advisory Board..

• Fables: We finalized editing and layout for the fable book, which included a total of nine fables created by Duke students (four in 2022 and five in 2023).

• Curriculum in the Classroom: We worked with teachers at Durham Public Schools and Carteret County Public Schools to continue piloting the curriculum and conducted research on what was working. Data from teacher feedback and classroom observation supported creating new activities, including plot diagrams that help students digest the narrative of the story, and coloring activities that allow children to utilize vibrant colors and bring the characters of the fables to life.

• Funding: Drs. Kathryn Stevenson and Liz DeMattia received additional funding from SeaGrant to support the project.

• Team Expansion: Kathryn Stevenson, Liz DeMattia, and Rory McCollum met with  Kenan Fellows  at the Oyster Roast for the Coast hosted by the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

• Funding: Drs. Liz DeMattia, Nicki Cagle, Aurora McCollum, and Laura Martinez received funding from Bass Connections to augment the project with art performances and puppetry.

• Curriculum Work: We worked with the Kenan Fellows to support 2-4 NC teachers as Kenan Fellows during 2024-2025. This work will make the curriculum standards aligned. 

• Fables: The first edition of Bend in the Wind: A Collection of Nature Fables was published.

• Curriculum Advisory Board Meeting #6:We hosted our sixth (and largest) CAB meeting and brought together educators from Durham County and Carteret County Public Schools. Together we worked on ways to make the curriculum better through classroom-led community engagement events. 

• Team Expansion: Nicholas School of the Environment undergraduate capstone students worked with the team to support community outreach with fable-based story walk products. Duke students worked with the team to create materials for kids to run story walks in their community.