While demographic trends in the United States indicate ever-growing minority populations, minorities remain under-represented in geosciences, even relative to other STEM fields. Thus, recruitment and retention of minority students a high priority and is necessary to maintain and enhance the intellectual health and workforce in the geosciences. This project builds a regional partnership in San Diego, California between Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California, San Diego, three local two-year colleges, i.e. San Diego City College, San Diego Mesa College, and Southwestern College, and geoscience professionals in the region. This partnership will bring increased awareness of geoscience education and career applications to first and second year underrepresented undergraduate students in our academic institutions through a combination of seminar courses and paid internship opportunities. The partnership will also build strong mentoring relationships between students, faculty and employers that will support students at critical junctures throughout their education; for example, as community college students consider transferring into four-year degrees.
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography Geosciences Education and Opportunities (Scripps-GEO) Program, is a three-year project that leverages outstanding geoscience educational and internship opportunities at Scripps to establish a regional geosciences learning ecosystem (GLE), dedicated to building a framework and sustainable mechanisms for increasing the pathway of diverse and talented students that pursue careers and graduate school in geosciences. The proposed GLE will include faculty and students from UC San Diego and three local Hispanic Serving Institutions (San Diego City College, San Diego Mesa College and Southwestern College), in partnerships with local and regional geoscience professionals. The proposed project is foundation building and will focus on three main areas: (1) establish the Scripps-GEO Program to strengthen faculty, institutional and public partnerships in geoscience workforce applications in our region, (2) initiate student-focused project components, specifically career-focused seminar courses and academic-year internship opportunities at Scripps, targeted at recruiting students early in their undergraduate education, i.e. first or second year students, and (3) critically evaluate our results and identify strategies that are most effective in preparing, advancing and retaining diverse students in degrees and careers in the geosciences.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
