GP-IMPACT: Increasing Geosciences Enrollment through Research Experiences, Mentoring, and Curriculum Interactions With Community Colleges and High Schools

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This program focuses on enhancing undergraduate research skills, encouraging matriculation in geoscience majors, recruiting and mentoring students at local community colleges and several high schools with large numbers of minority and high-needs students, and promoting the relevance of geoscience careers as viable career paths in academia, government service, and private industry. By developing ways to effectively engage a diversity of students, including under-represented minority (URM) students in geoscience disciplines and careers, this project is helping to address the United States' needs for producing more students well versed in geoscience and thus further enhancing the country's economic competitiveness. This project involves collaborations within the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, the Department of Geosciences and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Smart program housed in the Department of Technology and Society. Off-campus partners include Nassau and Suffolk County Community Colleges and several high schools on Long Island, all of which are within close geographic proximity of the Stony Brook University (SBU) campus. The main features of this project include: (1) Expanding summer research experiences for community college students interested in the geosciences, with a strong focus towards URM students; (2) Collaborating with community colleges and high schools during the academic year with joint club activities, seminars, and mentoring of students by SBU faculty, senior undergraduates, and graduate students; (3) Collaborating with the local community colleges to develop curricular units that result in a smoother transition for students from 2-year to 4-year institutions, such as SBU; (4) Providing scholarship support to students transitioning from community colleges to SBU geoscience majors, including URMs, by incorporating them into several existing academic and support structures available at the University, including the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP); (5) Providing increased internship and research opportunities for minority high school students and undergraduates in the geosciences at SBU and at other nearby locations (e.g., Brookhaven National Laboratory); and (6) Collecting data for a longitudinal study that gauges the awareness of, and reasons for, students pursuing geoscience majors or leaving the program part way through. The programs being implemented have potential for being adapted to other institutional contexts, thereby expanding access to and excellence in geoscience disciplines.