The Geosciences Institute for Research and Education (GRI) is a partnership including the University of Michigan-Dearborn, the Detroit Public Schools, and local corporations to extend research and learning opportunities in the geosciences to underrepresented groups within the Detroit metropolitan area. The goal of the program is to build awareness of the geosciences and to create an enthusiastic learning experience designed to motivate students to stay in school and to consider science, particularly the geosciences as a possible career. The program's goal is to reverse the current trend where over 40% of DPS students drop out of school and only 21% graduate from high school in four years. Project method include involving middle school students early in their educational career, along with their teachers, in ongoing, community-based research projects which demonstrate how the geosciences can be used as a tool to solve locally and socially relevant environmental problems that are also internationally important.
The main GRI activities consist of spring and summer institutes that will expose approximately 50 middle school and high school students and their families and about 20 teachers each year to the geosciences through inquiry-based, watershed-related environmental projects in southeast Michigan. The students, parents, and teachers are mentored both during and following the institute in order to encourage students to stay in school and attend college. The teachers, who typically do not have degrees in geology, are encouraged to return to school to take more geology courses in order to increase their competency as stipulated by the No Child Left Behind Act, but more importantly, to increase their excitement and enthusiasm for the geosciences.
A Geosciences Institute for Research and Education (GIRE) was established at the University of Michigan-Dearborn (UM-D) in 2004 with a grant from the NSF to facilitate geoscience outreach in urban areas in Michigan, particularly to the City of Detroit. A series of workshops offered in the spring and summer, as a part of the grant, extended learning and research opportunities to middle school and high school students and science teachers. The workshops were field oriented and involved the student and teachers in a variety of off-campus research programs, which included 1) an environmental assessment of the Delray community in southwest Detroit where a proposed bridge to Canada is planned. 2) An assessment of brownfield sites in southwest Detroit to determine which facilities represented a threat to public health and which could be available for immediate redevelopment. 3) An investigation of soils on parks and schools in southwest Detroit to evaluate whether their close proximity to existing brownfield sites posed a threat to public health. 4) An investigation to determine whether the dust generated during the demolition of homes contains significant levels of lead and thus poses a threat to public health. 5) A long-term investigation of the relationship between groundwater and surface water quality along the lower branch of the Rouge River in southeast Michigan (one of the most polluted urban streams in the country), and 6) an investigation of the impacts of land use on groundwater and surface water quality. The goal of the GIRE and the workshops were twofold. First, to provide the students and teachers with an understanding of how the Geosciences can be used as a tool to investigate and solve community-based environmental problems. During the seven years that the workshops were held, we involved over 70 teachers and nearly 100 students directly in our research projects, trying to build an enthusiasm and an appreciation for learning and the teaching of Earth Science in the 6-12 classroom. A second goal of the GIRE was to increase diversity in the geosciences. Our target audience was the Detroit Public School System (DPS). Although this second goal was realized and the enrollment in our introductory geology classes quadrupled during the course of this grant, we also realized that DPS experiences nearly a 50% dropout rate prior to graduation. Consequently, our emphasis shifted to working with teachers to build excitement and enthusiasm for the teaching of science, with the ultimate goal to encourage students to stay in school. To this end, we have continued to work with the teachers who attended our spring and summer workshops, providing them with assistance and materials, having our students go into their classrooms to work with their students and to involve them and their students in subsequent research projects. Anecdotal is suggesting that our long-term committment is working. Teachers and parents are reporting stories of students who have stayed in school and who have a new sense of purpose, who have graduated, gone on to community college or to a university and have majored in environmental science or studies and have gotten jobs. Enrollment in geoscience courses at UM-D is up substantially and enrollments in the geoscience major has tripled since the development of the GIRE. Taken together, we feel the GIRE has been most successful.
