REU SITE: Planetary Habitability Over Space and Time

地球科学中的两个主要概念是地质时间的尺度和数十亿年积分时可能发生的变化的大小。与这些想法联系在一起的是生命在这一巨大时间跨度中的连续性。这些概念是理解我们周围的自然世界的关键，对于一个成功的社会的许多方面都是必要的，例如能源的产生、自然资源的位置以及允许社会长期稳定的立法的制定。这些想法与更广泛的美国民众的沟通一直很薄弱，导致对为社会产生能源的过程缺乏了解，以及无效和/或低效的环境法规。因此，这一研究体验的目标是让学生接触这些地球历史的核心概念，同时也提供关于地球科学家可获得的职业机会的教育。每个学生都将被指派一名导师，指导他们完成与地球科学与生活之间的互动有关的暑期研究体验。该项目将包括一次为期数天的实地考察，旨在让学生接触到生活和物理过程之间的关系，并将以一种易于理解和丰富智力的形式展示实地考察工作。该计划将为学生提供每周一次的专业发展研讨会，并将在秋季学期提供与同龄人参与研究演示的机会。招生对象将面向没有独立的地球科学本科课程的大学的大一和大二学生，以及来自当地社区学院的学生，以扩大本科生对地球科学的接触。休斯顿地区有超过10万名社区学院学生，瞄准休斯顿的社区大学将有助于增加申请者的多样性。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。

Two main concepts in Earth sciences are the scale of geologic time and the magnitude of change possible when integrating over billions of years. Tied to these ideas is the continuity of life through this great span of time. These concepts are key to understanding the natural world around us and are necessary to many aspects of a successful society, such as the generation of energy, the location of natural resources, and the development of legislation that allows for long-term social stability. Communication of these ideas to the broader US population has been weak, resulting in poor understanding of the processes that generate energy for society and ineffective and/or inefficient environmental regulations. Thus the goal of this research experience is to expose students to these central concepts of Earth history while also providing education about career opportunities available to geoscientists.Each student will be assigned a mentor who will guide them through a summer research experience related to the interaction between Earth science and life. The program will include a multi-day field trip designed to expose students to the relationships between life and physical processes, and will present field work in a form that is accessible and intellectually enriching. The program will provide students with weekly professional development seminars and will follow up with fall semester opportunities to engage with peers in research presentations. Student recruiting will be targeted to freshmen and sophomores from universities without stand-alone undergraduate Earth science programs and from local community colleges, to broaden undergraduate exposure to the Earth sciences. There are more than 100,000 community college students in the Houston area and targeting Houston's community colleges will help increase the diversity of the applicant pool.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.