Our team conducts collaborative evaluation and holds research partnerships around environmental education programs. Our work spans participatory, formative, and summative evaluation, partnering with educators, scientists, and community organizations throughout a project lifecycle.
The CIRES CEEE Evaluation and Education Research team uses innovative approaches that are responsive to community and partner needs to evaluate the impact of projects focused on the earth, environment, and related educational programs. The team designs research studies to examine learning processes and educational outcomes by asking research questions, inviting participant perspectives and synthesizing data to answer those questions, and sharing findings with partners through effective reporting and publications.
CEEE evaluators bring multidisciplinary backgrounds and training to our partnerships. We work with scientists, educators, and community organizations in formal and informal education settings, with scientific research centers and offices, and with career development programs such as undergraduate research experiences and early career trainings. This figure illustrates our team’s expertise and topical areas of current projects.
The CEEE team conducts high-quality research and evaluation that provides data to continuously improve projects and document impacts and outcomes. Our work engages project teams in iterative and reflective processes that support the refinement of project activities and align research and evaluation questions with program goals to meet the needs of project partners and their audiences.
We collaborate on large- and small-scale projects and with diverse groups through all project stages, from needs assessment to summative evaluation. We support project teams in:
Our team currently evaluates several NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs and Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs). We work with program coordinators and instructors from the proposal stage through the final program impact report. Evaluation activities can include custom formative surveys for program improvement and refinement; validated quantitative measures that assess program outcomes such as science self-efficacy, science identity, and career plans; and qualitative measures, such as focus groups and interviews, for a deeper understanding of students’ experiences in a program or course.
See an example evaluation impact story from the Research Experience in Alpine Meteorology (REALM) program, a summer research experience for undergraduate students.
Our team evaluates curricula, teaching resources, and teacher trainings and their impact on teachers and their students. We typically evaluate curricula throughout development and implementation, including iterative formative evaluation during the development phase; evaluation of professional development training for teachers to learn how to implement the curriculum; evaluation of student data and teacher implementation data; and web analytics to assess the reach and use of curricula. We have conducted needs assessments in the early stages of projects to determine teacher demand and to help project teams design and deliver successful and relevant curricula to classrooms.
See an example evaluation report from the HEART Force program, an education program focused on building community resilience that includes a curriculum, student community action project, scenario-based role-play games, teacher training, and a teacher community of practice:
Our team evaluates several informal, or outside-of-the-classroom, education projects including planetarium films, library exhibits, community events, and film festivals. We work closely with project teams to conduct needs assessments and exhibit usability studies. We select tailored evaluation techniques when collecting audience feedback, translate evaluation instruments into the primary language of audiences, and use accessible language. We track visitor engagement through touch-screen interactive surveys, hands-on activities integrated into the exhibit, number of downloads of digital resources, web analytics, and participation and attendance numbers. We interview project partners and participants and conduct listening sessions to support the development of the program to meet the audience or community needs and better understand the impact of the project on local learning ecosystems and capacity building in communities.
See an example evaluation report from the We are Water (WaW) project, which includes an exhibition that is currently traveling to rural and Tribal libraries across the Southwest.
Our team provides formative and summative evaluation using collaborative approaches with project teams and partners for data centers, community offices, and other large, multi-organization projects. CEEE provides collaborative evaluation with leadership teams and guidance on developing a logic model and theory of change. We provide process evaluation, impact measures and feedback on events, tracking methods for project deliverables and measures of success, conduct social network analysis to document the evolution of emerging networks, and provide ongoing evaluation to assess the extent of change from those activities. We often contribute to reporting as well as publications about data centers and community offices.
See an example evaluation report from the NSF-funded Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab (ESIIL), a data synthesis center focused on advancing environmental data science and leveraging the wealth of environmental data and innovative analyses to develop science-based solutions to solve pressing challenges in biology and other environmental sciences.
See an example evaluation report from the Navigating the New Arctic Community Office (NNA-CO), which supports all NSF-funded NNA Arctic Research projects and their work by building awareness, partnerships, opportunities, and resources for collaboration and equitable knowledge generation through research design and implementation, and coordinates effective knowledge dissemination, education, and outreach.
Our team contributes to geoscience education research on topics including spatial reasoning, sense of place, environmental action and sense of agency in youth, climate and resilience education, geoscience career development, and systems thinking.
See all CEEE publications or read about a few of our education research publications below:
Boyd, K.J., Gold, A.U., Chandler, P.D., Crim, H.A. (2025): Climate change education in the new landscape of climate literacy. PLOS Clim 4(5): e0000623. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000623
Vieyra, R., López Tavares, D., Vallejo, A., Rouinfar, A., Gold, A., & Perkins, K. (2025). Elevating student agency to explore big Earth and space science ideas with PhET Interactive Simulations. The Earth Scientist, 42(1), 22-28.
Gold, A.U., Ward, E., Marsh, C., Moon, T., Schoeneman, S., Khan, A. (2025): Emotional Value Coding as an Innovative Approach to Assess Sense of Place in Classroom Instruction. American Education Research Association Conference.
Littrell, M., Gold, A.U., Ward, E., Quarderer, N., Sullivan, S., Rattling Leaf, J., Balch, J. (2025): Assessing Needs and Sense of Belonging in an Emerging Environmental Data Science Community. American Education Research Association Conference.
Littrell, M. K., Boyd, K. J., Schloesser, K., Christensen, A., Gold, A. U., & Alam, I. (2025). Place and community engagement in a youth natural hazards and community resilience education program. Journal of Geoscience Education, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2025.2489709
Explore our Evaluation 101 for essential guidance on program evaluation basics, including SMART goals and logic models. Check out our Evaluation Toolbox for tools and strategies to assess Broader Impacts activities like events, exhibits, and educational programs.
Introductory guide to evaluation basics, including goals, logic models, and planning tools. Developed by CEEE to support effective, ethical program assessment.
Database of simple evaluation tools that can be used to evaluate programs at low cost. CEEE evaluators co-developed this database and guide.
