Long-term Enhancement of Geoscience Diversity Through Engagement of Preteens

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Track 1: Long-term enhancement of geoscience diversity through engagement of preteens The Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) and Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC) are partnering to reduce the impact of cultural biases that pull young people from ethnically diverse urban communities away from potential geoscience careers. The partnership takes a three-step approach to this problem. (1) In the first step the project engages whole groups of ethnically diverse upper elementary school students in science "research partnerships" offered as afterschool programming; research partnerships help make the scientific process seem accessible and engaging, so that participants consider themselves able to do science. (2) In the second step PRI scientist educators engage a subset of those students who are especially interested in further opportunities for research and associated Museum education, and during the process help students consider if a career in the geosciences might be appropriate for them. (3) In the third step students are involved as mentors in research partnership outreach for the next cohort of students and as interpreters for peers in their school classes and afterschool activities. The project involves ethnically diverse upper elementary school students from a part of Ithaca, NY that has a high proportion of minority students. Students participate at PRI's new education and exhibits facility, the Museum of the Earth. The project uses several of PRI's existing initiatives for involving students in science, including the Devonian Seas Project, the Mastodon Matrix Project, and Collections Connections. K-5 students from GIAC visit the Museum exhibits and participate in research partnership activities according to their age level; twelve 4th and 5th graders become Junior Geoscientists and visit the Museum twice a week for the academic year, participating in geoscience activities, helping to create an exhibit, and learning to be docents. Later the students interact with their peers at school and GIAC, and help train the next cohort of Junior Geoscientists. The project runs for two years, in order to test the effectiveness of having students from the first year teach students from the second. The project is being tested in Ithaca's urban microcosm, after which PRI will implement the project in nearby Syracuse and Utica, looking toward application of the model to enhancing diversity in the geosciences nationally.