Oren Pizmony-Levy (op2183@tc.columbia.edu)
With support from the Earth Institute, the Center for Sustainable Futures is offering a paid internship opportunity to graduate students. The project, Sustainability Education For All, is part of the New York City Partnership for Sustainability Education (NPSE). This research-practice partnership brings together teams from the NYC Department of Education Office of Sustainability (DOE) and Teachers College, Columbia University (TC) to better understand and ultimately improve how schools support NYC’s sustainability goals. Both organizations are committed to a vision where ALL schools provide students and their communities with opportunities to learn about and participate in addressing sustainability challenges. Over the past five years, NPSE collected data from 1400 public schools in NYC regarding their annual sustainability activities (plans and reports on implementation). This project aims to understand variations across schools that serve students from different racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. To do so, we will analyze school-level data that show how schools engage sustainability education and whether there is an association between this engagement and the student population.
The intern will join the NSPE team and support the project with tasks related to data management, data analysis, and communication. More specifically, they will lead effort to merge datasets collected between 2016 and 2020 (nine datasets in total) and harmonize these datasets with publicly available datasets on NYC schools. The intern will contribute to the creation of a data codebook and manual. Together with the research team, they will take part in the analysis of the newly created database. The analysis will include descriptive statistics, correlations, and multivariate statistics. Finally, the intern will prepare charts, graphs, and tables; they will also be responsible for drafting research memos for publication.
The intern will need to demonstrate the following skill sets:
- Working knowledge of Microsoft Excel (e.g.; vlookup function, charts)
- Working knowledge of statistics (descriptive, inferential, multivariate)
- Working knowledge of Stata (experience with loops and coding is preferred)
- Excellent writing skills
- Ability to work independently and in teams
- Familiarity with visualization tools is preferred
For more information about Spring 2021 Earth Institute Internships: Spring 2021 Earth Institute Internships