This two-year pilot project at Iowa State University is introducing a cohort of talented community college students and transfers to collaborative research experiences in environmental geosciences through a ten-week summer internship. Building on an ongoing Research Experience for Undergraduates in the biogeosciences, this project has the objectives to (1) recruit talented females, nontraditional students, and underrepresented minority students from community colleges and provide them with opportunity to conduct cutting-edge research in the geosciences; (2) provide exposure to different scientific approaches, cyberinfrastructure and experimental methods; (3) introduce students to the presentation of scientific results through publication and presentation; and (4) motivate students to pursue careers in the geosciences and other STEM fields. Students work closely with teams including internationally recognized faculty, graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and other undergraduate students. Students will participate in a series of workshops and seminars addressing issues such as research methodology, career planning, and ethics in scientific research. Also included in the program are field trips, social activities, and other community-building and enrichment activities designed to foster cohesiveness and camaraderie among the students as a multicultural group and to enhance their appreciation of scientific research. The experience will conclude with a research symposium at which students will present their work to faculty, peers, and scientists from local, state and federal agencies. By stressing interdisciplinary approaches and cross-cutting processes that typify environmental systems, this project exposes students to not only their own individual research projects, but also the integration of those individual efforts into a larger system-wide context. In addition, by introducing community college students to the research that unravels the environmental processes in human-dominated landscapes and ecosystems, students will obtain requisite training for a broad array of future academic and professional careers in the geosciences and related STEM disciplines.
Principal Investigator: Udoyara Tim Co-PIs: Amy Kaleita and Steve Mickelson Project Overview: Increasing the quality, quantity and diversity of college graduates who fill the nation’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics pipeline is essential for the continued growth of the workforce. Community colleges represent an important component of the American higher education system, enrolling an increasingly large number of ethnically and age diverse students. Furthermore, community colleges provide a gateway for non-traditional and traditionally aged students. Hence, they provide not only an untapped source of students for the geosciences and related disciplines, but also an opportunity to broaden participation in the scientific workforce. Given that a limited number of community colleges offer courses and degree programs in the geosciences, and also given that most of the students transfer to four-year colleges and universities, the overarching goals of our project were to: (1) broaden participation in the geosciences and related disciplines by engaging community college students in scientific research and experiential training, and (2) increase the number of underrepresented minority students, women, and students with disabilities receiving baccalaureate degrees in the geosciences through exposure to professional development activities and skills required by the scientific workforce. Intellectual Merit: Our project addressed the overarching question: Can students from traditionally underrepresented and underserved groups who attend community colleges be encouraged to continue onto and complete four-year institutions by engaging them in scientific research and experiential training. It has long been believed that a research experience compels the student’s interest in STEM careers both within and outside of academia and prepares them for graduate school. From our project evaluation data, collected using qualitative and quantitative methods, evidence for this belief is unequivocal for the eight community college students (two cohorts of four students each year) that participated in our project. All eight students are now enrolled in four-year colleges and universities across the United States. Some of these students have expressed interest in continuing their academic careers onto graduate school in the geosciences and related disciplines. Our project also had positive effects on student participants in five important areas: self-esteem and confidence, sense of community among the students and their peers, cooperative work with world renowned scientists within a state-of-the-art research environment, professional development activities, and improved academic performance through acquisition of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Overall, our project (1) prepared a cadre of community college students and transfers to meet the demands for highly qualified and trained graduates entering STEM workforce within the geosciences domain; (2) contributed to "priming the educational pipeline" by reducing disparities among underrepresented and underserved students who are interested in graduate school and geosciences careers; and (3) provided professional mentoring to ease the problems associated with transfer from community college to four-year institutions. Broader Impacts: In addition to broadening participation, retention and performance of underrepresented and underserved students pursuing undergraduate degrees in the geosciences, our project was successful in addressing, in particular, several problems and challenges of engaging community college students and transfers in undergraduate research: improving the transfer process by enhancing their research and study skills; encouraging students’ interests in the geosciences and related disciplines through workshops; improving students’ confidence and enthusiasm for scientific research; nurturing students’ professional development and other activities necessary for securing skilled jobs in industry and government; gaining authentic research experiences to appreciate the benefits of continuing to graduate school; and increasing the number of non-traditional and traditionally aged community college students pursuing advanced degrees in the geosciences and STEM. A formidable obstacle in attracting community college student transfers to four-year college programs in the geosciences is the lack of opportunity to participate in formal pre-transfer research experiences and training. Overall, our project not only increased awareness of cohort of community college students of the geosciences, but also enabled a smooth transition of the participating students into advanced undergraduate programs in the geosciences and related disciplines.
