Helping Earth and Environmental Science Programs in Changing Times: Virtual Traveling Workshops and Expanding the Conversation about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

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All of education is transitioning to increased reliance on virtual formats. Distance education pre-dates the internet but has had to accelerate to near-ubiquity since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated inequities in the educational system, including access to virtual learning opportunities. Educators are struggling with how to address these inequities. NAGT gained experiential knowledge about virtual events when it held the annual Earth Educators’ Rendezvous virtually in July 2020 and two virtual training workshops (TW) in September 2020. The proposed TW will explore techniques for keeping participants engaged virtually and for facilitating difficult conversations regarding root causes of inequality and underrepresentation in the Earth and environmental sciences. The training workshop (TW) will help TSU, NAGT and its participating educators and educational institutions to strengthen STEM education, transform Earth and environmental education and prepare a greater diversity of students to consider jobs and careers connecting the Earth and society --a great need in the U.S. workforce. Lack of diversity is a challenge in the Earth and environmental sciences even more so than some other STEM fields. Consideration of the racial and societal contexts of Earth education leads to discussion of environmental justice and can help to attract students from underrepresented populations into Earth and environmental fields. The project goals are to expand access by converting TWs into an online format, incorporating more focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), transform workshop materials and websites, and prepare facilitators to conduct these workshops. Each TW fully incorporates evaluation by the workshop participants that will help to determine how techniques learned in the workshop are incorporated into facilitation.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.