Collaborative Project Track 2, METALS: Minority Education Through Traveling and Learning in the Sciences

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The METALS (Minority Education Through Traveling and Learning in the Sciences) represents a multi-institution collaboration to broaden participation in STEM fields by creating meaningful geoscience experiences among groups typically underrepresented in the geosciences and to motivate these groups to choose academic and career paths in the geosciences. The METALS program aligns four universities with strong field geology programs, an institutional history of emphasizing teaching and mentoring in the geosciences, and a commitment to providing access to college for large populations of underrepresented minorities. A strategic alliance of active geoscience diversity programs at San Francisco State University, the University of Texas at El Paso, the University of New Orleans, and Purdue University is being used to engage minority high school students in experiential learning opportunities through field-based settings. Project activities include: (1) Four 10-day instructional field trips, each for 40 high school students selected from each of the four university regions. The field trips take place in a different region each year: California and the Pacific Coast, the Colorado Plateau and Southwest, the northern Rocky Mountains and Great Plains, and the Gulf Coast. (2) Professor and graduate student-led field seminars and colloquia designed to connect underrepresented students with a deeper understanding of how Earth science processes impact local communities, how place-based understanding of landscapes varies among cultures, and the geological configuration of the U.S. (3) The building of pathways and support systems among the universities, first through students traveling and learning together in the geosciences, and second through social networking and 'virtual' sharing during the academic year resulting in an expanded network of mentor friends and a broader connection to faculty outside their department that will encourage and support student effort throughout their careers. (4) Engagement of minority graduate and undergraduate students in the program through field and research projects that grow out of data collected during the summer programs. The METALS program is expected to: significantly affect the academic choices of minority students as it relates to their choice of major and course selection in college; promote excitement about geology in a field setting while gaining a mutual respect, interdependence and trust among individuals of different ethnicities; and, strengthen the collaboration and knowledge base among partners toward encouraging diversity in the geosciences.