Heidi Ballard is the Founder and Faculty Director of the Center for Community and Citizen Science. You can find more information about her past and current projects, and sign up for occasional updates at the Center’s website.
I am interested in environmental education that links communities, science, environmental action and learners of all ages. Particularly I’m interested in what and how people learn through public participation in scientific research (PPSR) as a form of informal science education. From citizen science-type projects for conservation to participatory action research for natural resources management and environmental justice, PPSR projects can create unique opportunities for learning by participants and scientists. Understanding the outcomes and processes of these projects can contribute to better practices in environmental and science education, and better conservation and natural resource management.
Research Interests
Environmental Education; Citizen science; Participatory Action Research; In-service and preservice teacher learning; Science Education; Secondary Education; Service-learning. For more information.
Education
Ph.D. (2004) Environmental Science, Policy and Management from University of California, Berkeley
M.A. (1999) Teaching Biological Sciences from Miami University, Ohio
California Single Subject Teaching Credential (1994) Science and English Literature, Stanford Teacher Education Program, Stanford University
M.A. (1993) Education, Science Curriculum and Teacher Education, Stanford University
B.A. (1993) Human Biology and English Literature, Stanford University
Recent Publications
Youth-focused citizen science: Examining the role of environmental science learning and agency for conservation.
Authors: Ballard, H. L., Dixon, C. G. H., & Harris, E. M. Journal: Biological Conservation.
Citizen science can improve conservation science, natural resource management, and environmental protection.
Authors: McKinley, D. C., Miller-Rushing, A. J., Ballard, H. L., and others. Journal: Biological Conservation.
Bonney, R.; T.B. Phillips; H.L. Ballard and J. Enck. 2015. Can citizen science enhance public understanding of science? Public Understanding of Science 1-15.
McKinley, D.C., A.J. Miller-Rushing, H.L. Ballard, R.E. Bonney, H. Brown, D.M. Evans, R.A. French, J.K. Parrish, T.B. Phillips, S.F. Ryan, L.A. Shanley, J.L. Shirk, K.F. Stepenuck, J.F. Weltzin, A.Wiggins, O.D. Boyle, R.D. Briggs, S.F. Chapin III, D.A. Hewitt, P.W. Preuss, and M.A. Soukup. 2015. Investing in Citizen Science Can Improve Natural Resource Management and Environmental Protection. Issues in Ecology 19, Fall 2015.
Cigliano, J.A.; R. Meyer; H.L. Ballard; A. Freitag; T.B. Phillips and A. Wasser. 2015. Making marine and coastal citizen science matter. Ocean and Coastal Management 115: 77-87.
Monroe, M.; H.L. Ballard; A. Oxarart; V. Sturtevant; P. Jakes and E.R. Evans. 2015. Agencies, Educators, Communities and Wildfire: Partnerships to Enhance Environmental Education for Youth. Environmental Education Research. DOI:10.1080/13504622.2015.1057555
Long, J.; H.L. Ballard; L. Fisher and J. Belsky. 2015. Questions that won’t go away in participatory action research. Society and Natural Resources: An International Journal 29 (2): 250-263.
Bonney, R.; J.L. Shirk; T.B. Phillips; A. Wiggins; H.L. Ballard; A.J. Miller-Rushing; J.K. Parrish. 2014. Next Steps for Citizen Science. Science 243: 1436-7. 28 March 2014.
Benz, S.; A. Miller-Rushing; M. Domroese; H. Ballard; T. DeFalco; S. Newman; J. Shirk; A. Young. 2013. Workshop 1: Conference on Public Participation in Scientific Research 2012: An International, Interdisciplinary Conference. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. January 2013.
Galt, Ryan E.; Damian Parr; Julia Van Soelen Kim; Jessica Beckett; Maggie Lickter; Heidi L. Ballard. 2013. Teaching to transgress in sustainable agriculture and food systems: lessons from employing critical social constructivist pedagogy in a university course. Agriculture and Human Values.
Jordan, Rebecca C.; Heidi L. Ballard; Tina B. Phillips. 2012. Key issues and new approaches for evaluation citizen-science learning outcomes. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10 (6): 307-309.
Shirk, J.L.; H.. Ballard, C.C. Wilderman, T. Phillips, A. Wiggins, R. Jordan, E. McCallie, M. Minarchek, B.V. Lewenstein, M.E. Krasny, R. Bonney. 2012. Public Participation in Scientific Research: A Framework for Deliberate Project Design. Ecology and Society 17 (2): 29.
Ballard, Heidi L.; Emily Evans; Victoria E. Sturtevant and Pamela Jakes. In Press. The Evolution of Smokey Bear: Environmental Education about Wildfire for Youth. Journal of Environmental Education.
Evans, Evans; Cynthia Carter-Ching and Heidi L. Ballard. 2012. Volunteer guides in nature reserves: exploring environmental educators’ perceptions of teaching, learning, place and self. Environmental Education Research.
Fernandez-Gimenez, Maria E. and Heidi L. Ballard. 2011. How Community-Based Collaboratives Learn: Ecological Monitoring and Adaptive Management, in Firehock, Karen and E. Franklin Dukes, (eds.) Effective Collaboration for Natural Resource Management and Environmental Protection. University of Virgina Press.
Ballard, Heidi L. and Jill M. Belsky. 2010. Participatory Research and Environmental Learning: Implications for Building Resilience in Communities and Forests. Environmental Education Research.
Ballard, H.L.., V.E. Sturtevant and M.E. Fernandez-Gimenez. 2010. Improving forest management through participatory monitoring: A comparative case study of four community-based forestry organizations in the Western United States. In Lawrence, A. (ed), Taking Stock of Nature: Participatory Biodiversity Assessment for Policy Planning and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bonney, R., Ballard, H., Jordan, R., McCallie, E., Phillips, T., Shirk, J., and Wilderman, C. C. 2009. Public Participation in Scientific Research: Defining the Field and Assessing Its Potential for Informal Science Education. A CAISE Inquiry Group Report. Washington, D.C.: Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE).
Fortmann, Louise and Heidi L. Ballard. 2009. Sciences, Knowledges, and the Practice of Forestry. European Journal of Forest Research. 9 December 2009.
Fernandez-Gimenez, Maria E.; Heidi L. Ballard and Victoria E. Sturtevant. 2008. Adaptive Management and Social Learning in Collaborative and Community-based Monitoring: A Study of Five Community-based Forestry Organizations in the Western USA. Ecology and Society 13 (2): no. 4.
Ballard, Heidi L.; Maria E. Fernandez-Gimenez, and Victoria E. Sturtevant. 2008. Integration of Local Ecological Knowledge and Conventional Science: A Study of Seven Community-based Forestry Organizations in the USA. Ecology and Society 13 (2): 25.
Ballard, Heidi L. 2008. What makes a scientist?: Studying the impacts of harvest in the Pacific Northwest, USA, in Louise Fortmann (ed.), Participatory Research in Conservation and Rural Livelihoods: Doing Science Together. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.: Oxford, United Kingdom.
Ballard, Heidi L., Joyce A. Trettevick and Don Collins. 2008. Comparing Participatory Ecological Research in Two Contexts: An Immigrant community and a Native American Community on Olympic Peninsula, Washington, Carl Wilmsen, William Elmendorf, Larry Fisher, Jacquelyn Ross, Brinda Sarathy and Gail Wells, (ed), Partnerships for Empowerment: Participatory Research for Community-based Natural Resource Management, Earthscan, London.
Ballard, Heidi L. and Brinda Sarathy. 2008. Inclusion and Exclusion: Immigrant Forest Workers and Participation in Natural Resource Management, Carl Wilmsen, William Elmendorf, Larry Fisher, Jacquelyn Ross, Brinda Sarathy and Gail Wells, (ed), Partnerships for Empowerment: Participatory Research for Community-based Natural Resource Management, Earthscan, London.
Fortmann, Louise; Heidi L. Ballard and Louise Sperling. 2008. Change around the Edges: Gender Analysis, Feminist Methods and Sciences of Terrestrial Environments, in Londa Schiebinger (ed.), Gendered Innovations in Science and Engineering. Stanford University Press: Stanford, California.
Ballard, H. and L. Fortmann. 2007. Collaborating Experts: Integrating Civil and Conventional Science to Inform Management of Salal (Gaultheria shallon), in Hanna, Kevin and D. Scott Slocombe, (eds.) Integrated Resource Management. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Ballard, H. L. and L. Huntsinger. 2006. Salal Harvester Local Ecological Knowledge, Harvest Practices and Understory Management on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington. Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal 34 (4): 529-547.
Pilz, David; Heidi L. Ballard and Eric T. Jones. 2006. Broadening Participation in Biological Monitoring: Guidelines for Scientists and Managers. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report, PNW-GTR-680. http://www.ifcae.org/projects/ncssf3/
Ballard, Heidi L. 2005. Integrating Knowledge of Forest Management. (Invited Response.) Common Property Resource Digest. Quarterly Publication of the International Association for the Study of Common Property, December 2005.
Ballard, Heidi L.; David Pilz; Eric T. Jones and Christy Getz. 2005. Training Curriculum for Scientists and Managers: Broadening Participation in Biological Monitoring. National Commission on the Science for Sustainable Forestry. http://www.ifcae.org/projects/ncssf3/
Kerns, B. K., D. Pilz, H. Ballard, and S. J. Alexander. 2003. Compatible Management of Understory Forest Resources and Timber, in Monserud , R.A., R.W. Haynes, and A.C. Johnson (eds.) Compatible Forest Management. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Ballard, H. 2003. Harvester Knowledge and Science: Participatory Research on the Impacts of Harvesting Salal (Gaultheria shallon). Proceedings of the Rural Sociological Society 2003 Annual Meeting, Montreal, Quebec.
Ballard, H.; Kraetsch, R. and Huntsinger, L. 2002. Collaborative Monitoring in Walnut Creek, CA. California’s Changing Oak Woodlands. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report PSW-GTR-184 2002.
Ballard, H., D. Collins, A. Lopez and J. Freed. 2002. Harvesting Floral Greens in Western Washington as Value-Addition: Labor Issues and Globalization. 2002. Proceedings of the International Association for the Study of Common Property Biennial Meeting June 2002, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
Stanford Human Biology Middle Grades Life Sciences Project. 1998. HUMBIO Ecology. HUMBIO Your Changing Body. HUMBIO Sexuality. HUMBIO Reproduction. Everyday Learning Corporation, Chicago.
Blair, R. B. and Ballard, H. L. 1995. Conservation Biology: A curriculum for high school students (Teacher and Student Editions). Kendall-Hunt Publ. Co.: Debuque, Iowa. 263 p, 83 pgs.
Mukai, G.; Ballard, H. and Enimoto, A. 1995. Feeding a Hungry World: Rice in Asia and the Pacific. Stanford Project for International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) Institute for International Studies, Stanford, CA.
Professional Experience
K-12 Teaching Experience
1995-1998 Henry M. Gunn High School, Palo Also, California. 9-12th Grade Biology, Global Science, Physics, Applied Biology
1993-1995 John F. Kennedy Middle School, Redwood City, California. 7th Grade Life Sciences
Curriculum and Teacher Professional Development
1992-1993 Curriculum Developer, Stanford Project for International and Cross-Cultural Education
1993-1996 Curriculum Developer, Human Biology Middle Grades Life Sciences Curriculum Project, designed and wrote activities, and conducted teacher professional development for Evolution, Ecology, Human Sexuality and Reproduction curriculum units.
2000-2001 Science Consultant, Prentice Hall – Pearson Education, Conducted science textbook presentations and inservice workshops for middle and high school teachers throughout California.
Awards and Honors
2015-2020 Chancellor’s Fellow
2010-2011 UC Davis Hellman Fellow
2004 University of California, Berkeley, University Fellowship.
2002-2003 Environmental Science, Policy and Management Departmental Fellowship.
2002-2003 Ford Foundation Community Forestry Research Dissertation Fellowship.
Current Activities and Service
Advisory Board, citizen science project “Political Participation Observer“, University of Vienna, funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy
Governance Council member for the Center for Collaborative Research for an Equitable California, a UC Multi-Campus Research Initiative.
Community Forestry and Environmental Research Partnerships (steering committee member)
Courses Taught at UC Davis
Winter Quarter 2012 Office Hours: W 2-4pm and F 10-12pm, contact Dr. Ballard
EDU 142 – Introduction to Environmental Education (NEW in Spring 2010)
EDU 292 (soon to be 238) – Participatory Action Research
EDU 264 – Scientific Literacy and Science Education Reform
EDU 292 – Graduate Seminar in Environmental Education
EDU 294 – Science, Agric. and Math Education Graduate Seminar
EDU 206 B/C/D – Inquiry into Classroom Learning (Teacher Action Research
Graduate Student Researchers
Emily Harris
Colin Dixon
Karen Bush
Jennifer Metes
Sinead Brien
Funded Research
“Pathways Grant – Citizen Science in the California Naturalist program: Building the nexus between learning and action” – PI, National Science Foundation Informal Science Education program, 2011-2013.
“Public Participation in Scientific Research for Environmental Education: Research on Engaging Diverse Communities for Environmental Science Learning and Stewardship” – PI, Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, 2012-2013.
“Educating Families by Educating Youth about Wildfire” – PI, USDA Forest Service, 2009-2012.
“A partnership model for recruiting non-traditional and underrepresented high school students into agricultural sustainability degree programs” – Co-PI, USDA Higher Education Challenge Grant, 2011-2013.
“Environmental learning, mitigation strategies, and lion conservation in Tanzania” – PI, UC Davis Collaborative Interdisciplinary Research Grant, 2010-2012.
Past Projects:
“Social Learning in Contested Fields: Collaborative research and action among rice growers and migratory bird conservationists” – UC Davis Hellman Fellowship, 2010-2011.
“Making ‘hands-on’ science ‘minds-on’ science: Creating connections between classrooms, farms and habitats” – Cooperative Research and Extension Service for Schools Collaborative Research Grant
“Sustainable Harvest Project” – Laura Jane Musser Foundation
“Ecological Monitoring in Community Forestry in the U.S.” – Ford Foundation
With Youth-focused Citizen and Community Science (YCCS), youth contribute to authentic science. They can do this through data collection, but also interpreting or sharing findings. But what does this mean for science learning? To answer this question, we began conducting case studies with YCCS projects in Northern California and bringing together key stakeholders to explore when and how YCCS works best.
This blog post, authored by Ryan Meyer, Heidi Ballard, and Lila Higgins, originally appeared on the Blue Sky Funders Forum blog.
When do experiences with science lead young people to create change in their lives, landscapes, and communities? Consider this reflection from Rachel Anne Arias, a 12-year-old living in La Crescenta in Southern California:
This post, written by Molly Michelson, originally appeared on the website of the California Academy of Science.
We’re going to need a lot of people to save planet Earth—scientists, for example! Their research can help policy-makers and governmental agencies make conservation decisions about the regions, animals, and plants to save. But there simply aren’t enough of these academics to go around.
Heidi Ballard, associate professor of environmental education, presented talks on citizen science and public participation in scientific research at the Cambridge Conservation Forum in November 2014 and at the first-ever Citizen Science Conference that preceded the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in February.
Heidi Ballard, associate professor of education, has been selected as a 2014-15 Chancellor’s Fellow. The Chancellor’s Fellows Program recognizes “the rising stars who shine as teachers and campus citizens, and whose scholarly work already puts them at the top of their fields — garnering attention far and wide.” It is one of the highest and most prestigious honors on this campus.
The Center for Community and Citizen Science is a home to programs and partnerships that revolutionize how—and with whom—science gets done. Based on a foundation of research excellence, the Center helps scientists, communities, and citizens collaborate on science to address environmental problems as a part of civic life.
Associate Professor Heidi Ballard, an expert in environmental science education, is embarking on two newly funded research projects to study the efficacy of employing citizen science as a learning tool and a sustainable model for rigorous research. One project will focus on adults and the other on children.
Associate Professor Heidi Ballard, an expert in environmental education and citizen science, is used to working with educators, environmentalists, students and nonprofits to engage non-scientists in learning about environmental science and acting on their learning to influence their communities.
In Summer 2012 she traveled to Mpimbwe, Tanzania, to lend her expertise to a larger project led by two UC Davis researchers that engages local people in the conservation of one of the largest wildlife parks in that country, Katavi National Park.
Heidi Ballard, associate professor in environmental science education at the UC Davis School of Education, received a three-year $283,907 grant from the National Science Foundation to examine how participation in authentic scientific practice fosters and supports lifelong science learning.
This project arose from the realization that projects involving public participation in science vary widely, and often work in isolation from each other. These range from ‘citizen science’ projects for which people submit data about birds or plants online, to environmental justice-oriented community-based participatory research, and everything in between. These projects all revolve around members of the public collaborating in some form with scientists to answer environmental science questions.
Associate Professor Heidi Ballard, an expert in environmental education and citizen science, is used to working with educators, environmentalists, students and nonprofits to engage non-scientists in learning about environmental science and acting on their learning to influence their communities.
In 2012, she traveled to Mpimbwe, Tanzania, to lend her expertise to a larger project led by two UC Davis researchers that engages local people in the conservation of one of the largest wildlife parks in that country, Katavi National Park.
Heidi Ballard, an assistant professor in the School of Education, has been selected to be a 2010-2011 UC Davis Hellman Fellow and will receive an award of $20,409 to be used in support of her research activities.
Coming from a long line of teachers, Heidi Ballard was sure of one thing when she entered college: she was not going to become a teacher. Five years later, she found herself teaching high school biology.
