Workshop: Reducing Cultural Barriers to STEM for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, a collaborative proposal.

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This project will support a two-day workshop to be convened in Guam, on July 17-18, 2017, to discuss ways to mitigate cultural barriers that challenge the full participation by Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) in STEM. Participating in the workshop will be community leaders, faculty and teachers from schools in the US Pacific Island territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Compact-of-Free-Association countries (CoFA).This workshop follows the recommendations from a prior workshop, held in 2016, that discussed various barriers that prevent NHPI students from pursuing a STEM career. One of the main issues that surfaced at that workshop was the presence of strong cultural practices that could be seen as a barrier for young students to pursue a STEM career. Currently, there is an imminent risk presented by rising sea levels that have resulted in threats to homes, agriculture and continued residence in some of the islands. Therefore, there is a strong desire to grow native NH and PI talent who have the expertise to address the threats. The workshop will result in active discussions of the issues facing NHPI, and the creation of plans to address the barriers to STEM participation. It is anticipated that when changes in local attitudes, including understanding for the pressing need for STEM-literate citizens, and in the curricula and academic structure of some of the island schools are made, more students would be inclined to pursue STEM degrees. An outcome of this workshop will include a written document/report that will be made publicly available. Increasing the number Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders in STEM fields will allow this group to actively engage in devising solutions to the many problems faced by the islanders due to changing climate. The proposed workshop will provide a group of citizens, faculty and staff at schools and colleges across the Pacific with potential solutions to be able to attract more talent into STEM. This project is supported by the Division of Biological Infrastructure in the NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences.