GP-IN: A Bridge to Geoscience: An Issue-Relevant Learning Community for College Transfer Students

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This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).The number of jobs that require Geoscience training continues to grow, but the number of students pursuing an education in this field is declining. In all science disciplines, the participation of individuals from historically marginalized groups does not match the proportion of the U.S. population as a whole, but their representation in the Geoscience workforce lags even further behind. At the same time, the impact of environmental challenges is greater and more severe for historically marginalized communities. Increasing the representation of these communities in the Geosciences is therefore fundamental to developing equitable solutions to these issues. Here, the PIs aim to pilot and test the effectiveness of a place- and issue-based recruitment and summer education program that is designed to increase community college student interest in, and retention in, the Geosciences as practiced at a research intensive university. In doing so, the PIs aim to develop educational approaches that can be adapted to any location, thereby supporting NSF goals of promoting the progress of Geosciences by increasing participation by all affected communities. In the long term, PIs also aim to advance NSF’s goals of improving the health and welfare of the communities most impacted by environmental challenges. The project aims to test whether delivering fundamental, disciplinary content within a context that is meaningful to students can promote recruitment and retention of two-year college transfer students into the Geosciences, and particularly from local communities that may be economically challenged, underserved, and underrepresented in STEM. Researchers and educators in the University of Washington College of the Environment address both discovery and solutions-based science that bring together knowledge of the environment (Oceanography, Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences) with the study of living marine resources, habitats and human communities. Using this expertise, PIs will develop a summer bridge program, conducted on a research vessel and at the institution's marine field station. The program will provide immersive experiential learning activities that explicitly link quantitative skill enhancement with Marine Geoscience via a deep, data-driven exploration of particular issues of community and political concern in the Pacific Northwest. Subsequently, students will engage in a series of cohort-building activities designed to facilitate community building during their first year with an eye towards enhancing student preparedness for advanced coursework in the Geosciences and to improve social learning.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.