Evidence based on (5) Information Literacy

Research report: Research Question

Our question we decided on was: What does the community around the Missouri Botanical Garden need in terms of relationship building, outreach, and accessibility? This question is relevant to us because it encompasses everything that we have been working on in our research teams. Bryana’s main focus is community outreach in the areas surrounding the Botanical Gardens. When we were deciding on what topic to focus on, it was a no-brainer to focus more on Bryana’s issue because her presentation to our garden partners was very interesting. We both are passionate about this topic. We believe the garden needs to be more easily accessible to patrons in the surrounding neighborhoods. Whether that be a decrease in prices for local residents, free transportation provided, or promoting locals to visit the garden. The community surrounding the Missouri Botanical Garden needs outreach programs, an improved relationship with the garden, and better accessibility to improve engagement and inclusivity, ultimately leading to an increase in the local community wanting to visit the garden.

Our topic is how community outreach is beneficial to relationship building between communities and the organizations in them as well as improving accessibility. This is important because Community outreach plays a vital role in fostering strong relationships between them and the organizations around them. The idea is that organizations get back to intentionally serving the community so that those individuals feel connected to the organization. By engaging directly with community members, organizations can build trust and understanding which are necessary for effective collaboration. Efforts at outreach provide opportunity for open communication, allowing organizations to hear the needs and concerns of the community, as well as offer what resources are available to communities that they weren’t aware of before.

Improving accessibility is another significant benefit of community outreach. When organizations proactively pursue groups in the community, they can identify and address potential barriers to access that the groups might face.This includes barriers like lack of awareness about available resources or lack of transportation. Using community outreach as means to improve accessibility not only addresses access issues within the community but also promotes an overall sense of inclusivity and fair opportunity.

Organizations can also face challenges with community outreach in the areas of building trust with the community and effectively communicating with diverse groups. Language barriers can cause challenges to arise as well as cultural differences and differences in levels of education which is important to understand because how the organization communicates with the community, directly impacts how well community members can make a meaningful connection with the organization.

Research report: Literature review and analysis

An Overview of Environmental Education for Millennial Visitors in Indonesian Botanic Gardens

Risna, R. A., & Gumilang, A. R. (2019). An overview of environmental education for millennial visitors in indonesian botanic gardens: Berkala Penelitian Hayati, 24(2), 101–106. https://new.berkalahayati.org/index.php/jurnal/article/view/26/12

“This review article demonstrates how four different botanic gardens in Indonesia are trying to improve on several different aspects. This includes, educational outreach activities, appealing to younger audiences, and historical efforts. This article reviews a study on comparing the four different botanic gardens. Each garden has different techniques they use to share their information. Some gardens do educational modules, or videos, or some even try different versions of interactive media.

This article shows us the importance of educational programs at botanic gardens, not just in Indonesia. It demonstrates how it can be a way to connect with younger audiences, but also a way to educate adults who may have never come across this information. A connection of a digital humanities aspect of the information of the garden can help connect to the millennial audiences. By having a mobile app, it can allow for anyone to learn about the Indonesian Botanic Garden from anywhere in the world. It is a way to share their conservation efforts in order to promote change in their local communities. The shift of the gardens wanting to improve in their educational programs promotes a more people oriented approach, and caring for their garden visitors.”

From measuring the difference to making a difference with health information

Ottoson, J. M., & Green, L. W. (2005). Community outreach: From measuring the difference to making a difference with health information. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 93(4 Suppl), S49–S56. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1255753/

“This source is a review paper focusing on if the evaluation of community based outreach is made easier by a participatory approach. It specifically concentrates on a study analyzing ways that community outreach can help libraries rework their traditional framework to make health information more accessible as well as more effective. The National Library of Medicine’s health disparities initiative’s efforts at community based outreach, aim to promote as well as protect health, but they also acknowledge that this task cannot be addressed without the help of the communities around them.

In the review of this study, the National Library of Medicine’s success in improving access to health information is heavily reliant on productive collaboration between libraries and community organizations along with effective utilization of community resources. The paper addresses that similarly to the outreach itself, the evaluation of that outreach involves including other stakeholders in choosing what is important to achieve, what community resources are useful to health information, and how to judge how effective the outreach is or is not.

Another thing that combining participatory evaluation with community based outreach deals with is answering who decides whether outreach is successful and how findings about outreach success should be used. The authors of the paper suggest that utilizing evaluation theory can assist in constructing the combination between participatory evaluation and community based outreach. The National Library of Medicine reviewed theories about behavioral and community change in addition to evaluation theory, in the planning stages of their health information outreach.”

The Value of Community Engagement in Botanic Gardens with Examples from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Foulkes, J. (2017). The value of community engagement in botanic gardens with examples from the royal botanic garden edinburgh. Sibbaldia: The International Journal of Botanic Garden Horticulture, 15, 121–128. https://doi.org/10.24823/Sibbaldia.2017.227

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) has had community engagement at its core from their start. RBGE is passionate about working with communities and reaching out to all, regardless of age, background, or ability. In this study it was important for them to find ways of including those who have faced barriers to engaging with them, whether the reason being perceived, physical, social, financial or cultural. This project invites leaders of community groups and agencies to facilitate access to projects and programs that will inspire and inform people who might not otherwise connect with the garden or its work.

One effort the garden has made to involve the community is their public events program, which consists of weekly pop-up sessions and family oriented weekend events quarterly. During the weekly events, tours are provided as well as vegetable gardening advice and in person interpretation of the fruit and vegetable growing sections of the garden. Their weekend events are more aimed at a family audience and tend to be more popular among the people; including but not limited to their garden produce show, tasters of garden produce, and hands-on activities that directly engage visitors with the plants and other garden resources.

The Royal botanic Garden also has programs for groups in their local community. Community groups have the option of taking part in an already established program at the garden or schedule a visit for a workshop or a tour.The garden’s funding is unrestricted meaning it is not dedicated to one area of their organization which allows them to be flexible and serve the needs of the groups that they work with more effectively. They also have a community vegetable plots program where groups can claim a plot for the growing season and come to the garden weekly to work together with an experienced gardener to plan, maintain, harvest, prepare and share their crops.

The paper emphasizes that by offering people in the surrounding communities the opportunity for a positive experience in the garden, they have encouraged them to value plants and biodiversity. They have managed to connect people with their shared mission which is “to explore, conserve and explain the world of plants for a better future,” by inspiring individuals in the community to engage in the garden and be a part of that environment rather than separate from it.

This article is closely related to our research question because it covers actions another garden is taking already to connect with the people in their community and build relationships. It demonstrates the benefits of having community engagement at the core of the organization and making their establishment a shared environment that feels inclusive to the people participating.

Research report: Reference page

Reference Page

An Overview of Environmental Education for Millennial Visitors in Indonesian Botanic Gardens

From measuring the difference to making a difference with health information

Collaborative Conservation by Botanical Gardens: Unique Opportunities for Local to Global Impacts

Raschke, A. B., Pegram, K. V., Melkonoff, N. A., Davis, J., & Blackwell, S. A. (2022). Collaborative conservation by botanical gardens: Unique opportunities for local to global impacts. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens, 3(3), 463–487. https://doi.org/10.3390/jzbg3030035

When Suits Meet Roots: The Antecedents and Consequences of Community Engagement Strategy

Bowen, F., Newenham-Kahindi, A., & Herremans, I. (2010). When suits meet roots: The antecedents and consequences of community engagement strategy. Journal of Business Ethics, 95(2), 297–318. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0360-1

The Intervention of Outreach: Best Practices

Tembreull, C. L., & Schaffer, M. A. (2005). The intervention of outreach: Best practices. Public Health Nursing, 22(4), 347–353. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.0737-1209.2005.220411.x

Using Videovoice Methods to Enhance Community Outreach and Engagement for the National Children’s Study

Warren, C. M., Knight, R., Holl, J. L., & Gupta, R. S. (2014). Using videovoice methods to enhance community outreach and engagement for the national children’s study. Health Promotion Practice, 15(3), 383–394. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839913503470

Integrating community-based participatory research and informatics approaches to improve the engagement and health of underserved populations

Kim M Unertl, Chris L Schaefbauer, Terrance R Campbell, Charles Senteio, Katie A Siek, Suzanne Bakken, Tiffany C Veinot, Integrating community-based participatory research and informatics approaches to improve the engagement and health of underserved populations, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Volume 23, Issue 1, January 2016, Pages 60–73, https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocv094

The Value of Community Engagement in Botanic Gardens with Examples from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Science communication, public engagement, and outreach – informalscience. Org. (n.d.). Retrieved November 12, 2024, from https://informalscience.org/projects/communication/

Marsh, C. L., Gold, A. U., & Rongstad Strong, B. (2023). Elevating community voices through inclusive science communication: A case study of the We are Water program in the Southwestern United States. Frontiers in Communication, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1214105

Research report: Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Answer the following questions below for each of the 10 sources of evidence you gather.

Research Question: What does the community around the Missouri Botanical Garden need in terms of relationship building, outreach, and accessibility?

Review Paper 2

Team member evaluation: Bryana Nichelson

Citation for the article: Ottoson, J. M., & Green, L. W. (2005). Community outreach: From measuring the difference to making a difference with health information. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 93(4 Suppl), S49–S56. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1255753/

1-paragraph summary: This source focused on ways community outreach can help libraries rework their traditional framework to make health information more accessible as well as more effective. The study took a more collaborative approach by involving the community in assessing the research process and outcomes, in hopes of making the outreach easier for the community to process. In the end, they realized that although a participatory approach assisted in making findings more useful, sharing program knowledge, and showing the value of outreach, it did not make the community-based outreach an easier process.

What information does this source contribute to your research question? This source contributes to our research question by providing methods used to make something more accessible as well as make the impact on the community greater.

How does the source relate to other sources in your bibliography? This source is closely related to other sources in our bibliography because it is centered around community outreach.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the source? A weakness of this source is that it’s not too long in length, but it is a bit wordy and difficult to read on first try. A strength of this source is that it demonstrates how beneficial community outreach can be in any scenario where engagement needs to increase.

How does the source fit into your research topic? Why is it useful? This source is useful for our research question because it made me think about how participatory our research needs to be and how that will or won’t affect how the community receives the outreach.

Research Paper 1

Team member evaluation: Bryana Nichelson

Citation for the article: Warren, C. M., Knight, R., Holl, J. L., & Gupta, R. S. (2014). Using videovoice methods to enhance community outreach and engagement for the national children’s study. Health Promotion Practice, 15(3), 383–394. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839913503470

1-paragraph summary: This article covers an experiment done by The National Children’s Study (NCS), an observational study that examines the effects of environmental influences on child health and development in the United States. In the study videovoice is used to document and share the experiences of residents, both to raise their own awareness and to influence community-level change. This study included six Cook County, IL, communities, selected for the project because they were described as “hard to reach.” These communities are considered difficult to reach for many reasons, some including, high concentration of children in poverty, lack of outreach opportunities, and low attendance at community events. A 6-week, videovoice training was conducted to train NCS community outreach and engagement team, and after receiving training in research ethics, interviewing technique, and videography, the team conducted videotaped interviews with key stakeholders in their specific communities. The results of this study were increases in videography skills, community outreach, communication abilities, and awareness of important community health issues.

What information does this source contribute to your research question? Our research question focuses on what the communities surrounding Mobot need as far as relationship building, outreach, and accessibility. This study contributes to that by putting into perspective new ways the garden can engage with the communities through outreach and how to educate the communities on what the garden has to offer them.

How does the source relate to other sources in your bibliography? This source is related to other sources in our bibliography because multiple of our sources focus on community outreach and health.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the source? The strengths of this source are that it is closely related to the community outreach aspect of our research question and also that their intended audience were those in “hard to reach” communities, which is important because it’s not going to be easy for us to gain access to the communities that have previously been hard for the garden to reach. A weakness of this source is that a main focus of this study is on child health and development in the US, which has little to do with our research topic.

How does the source fit into your research topic? Why is it useful? This source is useful to our research topic because both address identification of barriers to participation in research experiments/ studies, enhancing community engagement through community outreach, and increasing community knowledge of local resources.

Research Paper 2

Team member evaluation: Bryana Nichelson

Citation for the article: Integrating Community (N.d.). Retrieved October 1, 2024, from https://academic.oup.com/jamia/article/23/1/60/2379975

1-paragraph summary: In this source the work of 5 health researchers that applied community based participatory research (CBPR) approaches is compared. The source proves that some benefits of CBPR approaches to health research were better engagement with diverse populations, more speedy transition from research to implementation, and the development of community partners.

What information does this source contribute to your research question? This source relates to the part of our research question focusing on relationship building with the communities surrounding Mobot.

How does the source relate to other sources in your bibliography? This source relates to others in our bibliography by being about integrating community into science.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the source? The strengths of this source are that it shows the benefits of community engagement and collaboration. A weakness is that all the studies compared were the same kind of study.

How does the source fit into your research topic? Why is it useful? This is a relevant source because CBPAR is useful for our goal to include the community in our research.

Research Paper 3

Team member evaluation: Bryana Nichelson

Citation for the article: Foulkes, J. (2017). The value of community engagement in botanic gardens with examples from the royal botanic garden edinburgh. Sibbaldia: The International Journal of Botanic Garden Horticulture, 15, 121–128. https://doi.org/10.24823/Sibbaldia.2017.227

1-paragraph summary: The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) has had community engagement at its core from their start. RBGE is passionate about working with communities and reaching out to all, regardless of age, background, or ability. In this study it was important for them to find ways of including those who have faced barriers to engaging with them, whether the reason being perceived, physical, social, financial or cultural. This project invites leaders of community groups and agencies to facilitate access to projects and programs that will inspire and inform people who might not otherwise connect with the garden or its work.

What information does this source contribute to your research question? This source demonstrates how to plan out and implement a program that would involve a well known garden taking interests in things that the people of the community are interested in, to in turn grow interest in the garden.

How does the source relate to other sources in your bibliography? This source is related to all the other ones by being about engaging with the community to make the impact of the organization greater and more intentional about being diverse.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the source? Strengths of this source are that it shows that a program like this is possible in the same type of environment we are dealing with currently.

How does the source fit into your research topic? Why is it useful? This source is useful our research beacause it deals closely with community engagement and allowing people to make their own connection with the garden.

Science Communication Paper 2

Team member evaluation: Bryana Nichelson

Citation for the article: Marsh, C. L., Gold, A. U., & Rongstad Strong, B. (2023). Elevating community voices through inclusive science communication: A case study of the We are Water program in the Southwestern United States. Frontiers in Communication, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1214105

1-paragraph summary: This source discusses how the We are Water program utilizes an asset-based community engagement framework and incorporates practices of inclusive science communication into the development and implementation of communication strategies. Inclusive science communication efforts are designed to center communities to best serve their interests, needs, and values, which includes being intentional about considering how science is defined in the communication spaces built and how historically marginalized communities are, and have been, represented and supported in engagement activities and communication efforts.

What information does this source contribute to your research question? This source contributes to our research by presenting the idea of inclusive science communication efforts to attract our intended audience.

How does the source relate to other sources in your bibliography? This source is related to other sources in our bibliography by being centered around science and community voice.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the source? A strength of this source is that it appeals to a variety of people, not just people interested in science already. A weakness of this source is that the structure of the source itself is confusing to read.

How does the source fit into your research topic? Why is it useful? This source is useful for our research question because it is a goal of ours to appeal to an audience that either has not already been exposed to the garden or isn’t currently interested in the garden.