GP-EXTRA: Building an affective pathway to the geosciences through experiential learning opportunities for non-geoscience majors

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A strong workforce in the geosciences is needed today more than ever if America is to overcome resource security challenges for water, food, and energy in the face of global change and widespread land use transitions. Despite this critical need, there is a deficit of students opting to pursue geoscience-related career paths. The overarching goal of this project is to increase the number of students at Clemson University intending to pursue a geoscience-related career by providing opportunities for both Geology majors and non-majors to engage in career-relevant geoscience research. The approach that is being taken focuses on accessing the affective domain of learning as a mechanism to increase student engagement with the geosciences, via student motivation, emotion, and connections to Earth. Targeting non-geoscience majors in this project is an important goal as they represent a large population of students that are often exposed to the geosciences through service (e.g., general education) courses, but rarely have an opportunity to participate in field or research activities, both of which are well known to be important doorways to careers in geoscience. This project enables thousands of students to be exposed to geoscience research and STEM communication, thereby making a significant impact on the development of the geoscience workforce in South Carolina. A new Industrial Affiliates program further engages students with existing geoscience professionals to promote student selection of careers in geoscience-related areas. This project addresses the deficit in the geoscience workforce by creating a three tier extracurricular approach to gradually transform non-majors into geoscientists by leveraging the existing undergraduate research component of Clemson's Geology Bachelor's (BS) degree. The first tier of engages non-major students enrolled in geoscience service courses in extracurricular inquiry-based thinking that draws on the research activities of Clemson's undergraduate geoscience majors. Building on this effort, students recruited to the second tier of engagement take part in non-major oriented project-based learning activities that utilize a "citizen science" approach to data collection, geoscience problem solving with GIS, or geoscience communication and outreach. Students transitioned into the third tier of the program take part in formal undergraduate geoscience research projects. Investing in Clemson's current research program not only strengthens research experiences for current Geology majors, but also provides more diverse, engaging and interesting projects to attract non-majors. For example, the project enables cutting-edge science questions to be addressed in areas ranging across the fields of climate change, water sustainability, geomechanics, and geochemistry. The newly-developed Industrial Affiliates program further strengthens the outcomes of both this project and the undergraduate BS degree program through: professional lectures, co-mentoring of student projects and internships, and evaluation of student preparation for careers in the geosciences. Building on the existing BS degree program also allows the project to leverage Clemson's geoscience majors as ambassadors to non-majors and geoscience professionals, thereby strengthening the overall geoscience community in South Carolina. The activities in this project build on best-practices developed in the geoscience education literature and contribute to this body of research by studying how the affective domain of learning contributes to student motivation in pursuing a career in the geosciences.