GP-IMPACT: Expanding HBCU Pathways for Geoscience Education

尽管STEM做出了有意义的多样性和包容性努力，但非洲裔美国人在地球科学中的代表性仍然不成比例地偏低。尽管国家标准早在六年级就引入了这一领域，但许多教师缺乏开发地球科学内容或自信地提供地球科学指导和职业指导的熟练程度。从历史上看，黑人学院和大学(HBCU)是满足这些需求的未开发资源和机会。HBCU拓展地球科学教育之路项目建议开发和部署一项深度评估，以(1)影响中学教师准备课程和专业发展活动，以实现(2)提高非洲裔美国人在地球科学中的代表性的目标。这一系统的方法将产生一个评估和加强工具，使用户能够利用HBCU和其他实体在地球科学方法、做法和成果、行政领导和机构支助方面基于证据的最佳做法来评估他们的机构办法，并特别强调职前教师培训课程和方案。评估和加强是拟议工作的两个组成部分，各机构可以利用这两个组成部分来规范地处理已查明的任何差距。由于开发了工具的两个阶段(评估和增强)，然后将其相互映射，该团队预计将找出不足以或缺少满足需求的增强工具的空白。例如，HBCU路径小组以前的集体经验表明，需要开发和测试与文化相关的材料，因为它们对于接触和吸引来自代表性不足群体的学生至关重要。这些材料将帮助这些学生群体看到他们可以通过在地球科学方面的职业和/或重要培训来填补的角色。这些步骤中的每一步对于系统地确定增加地球科学多样性的前进道路是至关重要的，以便我们能够更全面地解决现有的和将在未来几年继续揭示的环境问题。扩展的HBCU地球科学教育之路项目将开发和测试一个评估和增强工具，HBCU和其他达到或有志于吸引和支持包括地球科学教育在内的地球科学领域的机构可以使用该工具来吸引和支持非裔美国人。由于过去半个世纪以来地球科学多样性和包容性的努力并没有带来显著的增长，HBCU Path团队将使用一系列关键组成部分来支持非裔美国人在地球科学领域的成功，以开发该工具的评估部分。其中包括加强对地球科学课程和活动的机构/方案支持和能力，同时以职前和在职教师为对象。因此，HBCU路径将提供一个战略性的多维解决方案(1)，以影响中学教师准备课程和专业发展活动，以实现(2)改善少数群体接触地球科学的目标。这一多维度和可扩展的解决方案将在前12个月在3家机构开发和测试，并在后12个月在另外2家机构进行开发和测试。在每个阶段，将对增强资源进行审查和绘制地图，以推荐特定地点的规范性资源，以加强各机构提供实践培训、开发地球科学内容并将地球科学纳入HBCU职前教师准备课程和计划的努力。核心跨学科团队以及其他合作伙伴和顾问将利用理论驱动的干预设计和评估过程，制定有效、可持续和可扩展的机构和方案层面的干预措施。这一方法将被用来支持干预措施的制定，从一开始就将主要利益攸关方，特别是教师教育工作者、地区学校系统代表和地球科学家聚集在一起，审查和处理拟议的方法，以实现可信、可行和可测试的评估方法和改进活动。这也将与教育工作者培训标准认证委员会保持一致。此外，这项旨在系统开发和完成可扩展、互动、利益相关者驱动的深度潜水过程测试的重点工作，将通过访问HBCU尚未开发的社区资源和机会，帮助HBCU和更广泛的教育界推进地球科学教育和劳动力发展。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Despite meaningful STEM diversity and inclusion efforts, African Americans remain disproportionately underrepresented in the geosciences. Though national standards introduce the field as early as the 6th grade, many teachers lack the proficiency to develop content or to confidently deliver instruction and career guidance in the Earth Sciences. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) are untapped resources and opportunities to meet these needs. The Expanding HBCU Pathways to Geoscience Education project proposes to develop and deploy a deep-dive assessment to (1) impact middle school teacher preparation curricula and professional development activities toward the goal of (2) improving African American representation in the geosciences. The systematic approach will result in an Evaluation and Enhancement Tool that will allow the user to assess their institutional approach with evidence-based best practices of HBCUs and other entities in geoscience methods, practices, and outcomes; administrative leadership; and institutional support with particular emphasis on pre-service teacher preparation curricula and programs. Evaluation and Enhancement are two components of the proposed work, which may be used by institutions to prescriptively address any gaps that are identified. As the 2 stages of the Tool (Evaluation & Enhancement) are developed and then mapped to each other, this team anticipates that voids will be identified for which there are inadequate or missing Enhancement Tools to meet the need. For example, previous collective experience of the HBCU Pathways group indicates that culturally relevant materials will need to be developed and tested as they are critical in reaching and attracting students from underrepresented groups. These materials would help these student groups see the role that they can fill with a career and/or significant training in the Geosciences. Each of these steps is essential in systematically determining the path forward for increasing diversity in the Geosciences so that we may more holistically address the environmental issues that exist and that will continue to be revealed in coming years.The Expanding HBCU Pathways to Geoscience Education project will develop and test an Evaluation and Enhancement Tool that can be used by HBCUs and other institutions that reach or aspire to attract and support African Americans in the Geosciences, including Geoscience Education. Because geoscience diversity and inclusion efforts over the past half century have resulted in a less than notable increase, the HBCU Pathways Team will use a range of critical components to supporting the success of African Americans in the Geosciences for the development of the Evaluation component of the Instrument. These include strength of institutional/ programmatic support and capacity for geoscience curricula and activities, while targeting pre-service and in-service teachers. Thus, HBCU Pathways will deliver a strategic multidimensional solution (1) to impact middle school teacher preparation curricula and professional development activities toward the goal of (2) improving minority access to the geosciences. This multidimensional and scalable solution will be developed and tested at 3 institutions in the first 12 months and 2 additional institutions in the second 12 months. At each stage, Enhancement Resources will be vetted and mapped to recommend site-specific prescriptive resources to fortify efforts by institutions to offer hands-on training, develop geoscience content, and deliver geosciences into HBCU pre-service teacher preparation curricula and programs. Core interdisciplinary teams and additional partners and advisors, will utilize a theory-driven process of intervention design and evaluation to develop an effective, sustainable, and scalable institutional and programmatic-level intervention. The approach will be used to support the development of interventions by bringing together key stakeholders, particularly Teacher Educators, Regional School-System Representatives, and Geoscientists from the start to scrutinize and address proposed approaches to achieving plausible, feasible, and testable assessment methods and enhancement activities. This will also be aligned with the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation standards. Additionally, this focused effort to systematically develop and complete testing of a scalable, interactive, stakeholder-driven deep dive process will assist the HBCU and broader Education community in advancing geoscience education and workforce development by accessing the untapped HBCU community resources and opportunities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.