NSF IUSE: GP-UP: Accessing the geosciences through social action at the University of Puerto Rico Humacao

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ITIAS-GEO program is an innovative transdisciplinary program that will create opportunities for Hispanic undergraduate students at the University of Puerto Rico Humacao (UPRH), a small, undergraduate minority serving institution with no geoscience program, to experience the geosciences. Twenty undergraduate students, comprising two cohorts, will be supported through a novel geoscience learning ecosystem that incorporates both for-credit undergraduate community-based social action research (CBPR) and co-curricular professional development and geoscience career exposure. The students, recruited from the natural and social sciences at UPRH, will identify, develop and conduct a geoscience project under the mentorship of social and natural science faculty and in partnership with the local community using CBPR conducted over a period of four semesters. In doing so, students will engage deeply with locally relevant science and its human context and gain vital STEM skills while collaborating with a community already struggling with the impacts of climate change, inspiring them to pursue a career in the geosciences. In addition to their locally based experience, the students will participate in an intensive geoscience immersion week at the University of Colorado at Boulder to enhance their network and understanding of opportunities in the geosciences, and be part of a comprehensive professional development and career support program.The ITIAS-GEO program specifically addresses the imperative to broaden the participation of underrepresented populations in STEM by providing support and incentives to Hispanic, low-income students at a small minority serving institution to engage with and continue toward careers in the geosciences, and builds capacity for faculty at the UPRH to engage in geoscience-centered research within existing social- and natural- science courses. By engaging the community in the research from start to finish, the participating students and faculty will also provide relevant and wanted information and support to a community that is working to understand and adapt to the human and physical impacts of environmental hazards and climate change. Key objectives of the project include: 1) Provide non-geoscience majors from the social and natural sciences with awareness of and a pathway into the geosciences through research, mentoring, and service learning; 2) Develop STEM career-relevant skills in critical thinking, data analysis, scientific and public communication, interdisciplinary team science, and scientific identity to undergraduate researchers; 3) Engage both students and the local community in geoscience through community-based participatory research and outreach; 4) Develop awareness of geoscience careers and their relevance for Puerto Rico; and 5) Create a mechanism for collaboration between institutions toward scientific and broadening participation goals in the geosciences.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.