GP-GO: The Appalachian SUCCESS Program: Strengthening students classified as Underrepresented in STEM by inspiring Confidence, Curriculum and Enriching Sensing Skillsets

该项目由促进竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）计划共同资助。该项目的目标是建立阿巴拉契亚成功项目，测试指导项目发展的学习生态系统模式的有效性，并维持一个改进的指导计划，该计划在资助结束后继续为肯塔基州东部和西弗吉尼亚州阿巴拉契亚贫困社区的学生提供帮助。pi旨在通过家庭参与和服务学习来激发研究生的信心，增加研究生在喀斯特和地下科学领域接受地球科学培训的机会，培养学生在传感器技术领域的技能，并为学生增加研究机会，为未来的研究和职业道路打开大门。该项目主要针对肯塔基大学、马歇尔大学和东肯塔基大学的一年级研究生，以及一些正在过渡的本科生，这三所大学分别是卡内基R1、R2和M1大学。学生们将沉浸在一个为期10个月的项目中，学习生态系统模型的组成部分旨在：通过与三所大学的学生一起学习地球科学中的传感器技术，建立学生的信心；让学生的家庭和社区参与到他们的课程中，这样信息的双向传递既能建立研究生的信心，又能让他们看到他们的工作对家庭成员和K-12学习的潜在变革性影响；帮助学生学习可以在研究生院使用的批判性思维；帮助他们探索和定义自己的地球科学兴趣和/或专业，以实现职业规划；为他们将来在合作团队和跨学科的科学环境中工作做好准备；并使用先进的传感器仪器进行独立的研究项目。阿巴拉契亚成功项目旨在通过设计和测试一种新颖的方法来增加攻读研究生学位的学生数量，从而促进国家科学基金会的使命，这种方法可以让学生获得真实的、与地球科学相关的职业经验。为了扩大对地球科学的参与，该项目招收了来自阿巴拉契亚地区的学生，他们在科学、技术、工程和数学领域的历史代表性不足。来自阿巴拉契亚地区的学生经常面临与他们所居住的县的经济困境有关的障碍，他们在农村环境中获得教育资源的机会相对较少，并且由于他们是第一代学生而缺乏大学指导资源。SUCCESS课程旨在通过一系列非技术和技术学习内容帮助克服这些障碍。研究生参与者将与家人和教师一起，在整个项目中会面，讨论职业轨迹，通过与初中或高中教师合作，开发K-12科学课程，并向来自阿巴拉契亚家乡的学生教授内容，参与服务学习。参加行业和政府部门的实地考察，了解地球科学领域的职业发展，并与合作机构合作，通过整合新的地球科学传感器技术进行研究。教师导师和研究生将开展讲习班，以发展技术和软技能，最终在区域科学会议上发表研究报告。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project is jointly funded by the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program. This project's goal is to establish the Appalachian SUCCESS program, test effectiveness of the learning ecosystem model guiding the program’s development, and sustain an improved mentoring plan that is carried forward after the grant ends for students from Appalachian distressed communities in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. PIs seek to inspire graduate student confidence through family engagement and service learning and increase graduate student access to geoscience training in the areas of karst and hyporheic science, develop student skills in the area of sensor technology, and increase research opportunities for students which can open doors to future research and career pathways. The program focuses on first year graduate students, and in some cases undergraduates in transition, at the University of Kentucky, Marshall University and Eastern Kentucky University, which are Carnegie R1, R2 and M1 universities, respectively. The students will be immersed in a 10-month-long program, and components of the learning ecosystem model aim to: build the students’ confidence through working with the tri-university cohort of students learning about sensor technology in geoscience; engage the students’ family and community in their curriculum so the two-way transfer of information both builds the graduate students confidence and allows them to see the potentially transformative impact of their work on family members and K-12 learning; help the students learn critical thinking that can be used in graduate school; help them explore and define their own geoscience interests and/or specializations to work towards a career plan; prepare them for future work in collaborative team and interdisciplinary scientific settings; and conduct independent research projects using advanced sensor instrumentation. The Appalachian SUCCESS Program aims to promote NSF’s mission by increasing the number of students pursuing graduate degrees through the design and testing of a novel approach that engages students in authentic, career-relevant experiences in geoscience. In order to broaden participation in the geosciences, the program engages students from Appalachia who are historically under-represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Students from this Appalachian region often face obstacles associated with the economic distress of the counties they live in, relatively low access to education resources in their rural environments, and lack of college mentoring resources because they are first-generation students. The SUCCESS curriculum is designed to help overcome these obstacles via a series of non-technical and technical learning components. Along with family and faculty, graduate student participants will meet throughout the program to discuss the career trajectories, engage in service learning by working with middle-school or high-school teachers to develop K-12 science curriculum and teach the content to students from their Appalachian hometowns, attend industry and government sector field trips where they learn about careers in the geosciences and work together across the partnering institutions to conduct research by integrating new sensor technology for the geosciences. Faculty mentors and graduate students will carry out workshops to develop technical and soft skills that culminate with research presentations at a regional science conference.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.