GP-IN: Geoscience Exposure and Training in Texas (GET Texas): High School through Undergrad

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Recruiting more geoscience undergraduates is vital to addressing projected employment shortfalls and developing solutions for the complex problems that society faces. However, many late high school and community college students remain unaware about geoscience as a discipline and its promising career paths. In many states (including Texas), geoscience and environmental science-related courses are not required for graduation from high school, and many students, their parents, and teachers are not aware of the variety of careers available in the geosciences. If we are to address the geoscience employee shortfall and increase geoscience workforce diversity, we must: 1) get geoscience concepts to students earlier in their academic careers; 2) show those in transition to colleges and universities how the geosciences are applicable and employable; 3) recruit from a wider pool of potential students; and 4) develop lasting relationships with students and educators. To meet these goals, Lone Star College and Sam Houston State University will build relationships with a local museum, a summer camp, and local high school teachers to increase geoscience awareness. This project will train teachers and early-career geoscientists during workshops and an abbreviated summer bridge program that covers active and historical geologic processes and environmental issues in the local region. Student participants will be supported with faculty and peer mentoring throughout the project and the duration of their geoscience education at both the community college and university levels. Given the importance of geoscience careers for the Texas economy, the PIs expect many of the students and teachers that this program reaches will help bridge future employment shortfall projections while diversifying the geosciences.GET Texas will increase geoscience awareness and help meet current and future employer demand by creating a place-based geoscience learning ecosystem (GLE) that includes informal institutions (Houston Museum of Natural Science and a local YMCA), high schools, the largest Houston-area community college system (Lone Star College), and a regional four-year, undergraduate-focused university (Sam Houston State). This project provides geoscience training and exposure opportunities through: 1) high school outreach and continuing-education teacher workshops to introduce the relevance of the geosciences; 2) a place-based summer bridge program focused on sediment and water issues in southeast Texas; and 3) sustained teacher and student mentorship by offering continuing geoscience open houses to maintain peer and faculty mentoring while promoting the many career paths in the geosciences. The summer bridge program, one key for transitioning students from high school into college and university geoscience programs, will include a combined field and laboratory approach that covers geochemistry, hydrology, geomorphology, and active and historical sedimentary processes in the Gulf-Coastal Plain and Central Texas. While many STEM-related studies provide a foundation for how to recruit and retain diverse students, This project goes beyond the field experiences and builds a holistic teacher-student recruiting GLE that engages participants in multiple forums and at events throughout the entire year to maintain peer and faculty mentoring relationships. These sustained relationships are key for both recruiting and retaining underrepresented minority students at Lone Star College, a Hispanic-Serving Institution, and Sam Houston State, an emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution.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.