Implementation grant: NewGeo: A Newark Geo-ecosystem for cultural transformation and systemic change in the geosciences

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The Newark Geoscience Ecosystem (NewGeo) is a transformative learning geo-ecosystem model uniting Newark-based institutions and organizations in the growth of a geoscience workforce prepared to solve urban environmental challenges through cross-sectoral collaboration. Rutgers University Newark leads NewGeo, a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) with an anchor institution mission centered on community engagement, science in the urban environment, and inclusive excellence through integration of diversity and inclusion in all pursuits. Through experiential learning opportunities, NewGeo graduate students build partnerships with Newark’s government, industry and education sectors, teach and mentor K-16 students, and collaborate with non-profits and community-based organizations. This instills a sense of civic responsibility in graduate students and the aspiring geoscientists they mentor. This project cultivates a geoscience workforce that is representative of and prepared to engage with the local citizenry to tackle environmental and climate stresses and injustices. The NewGeo faculty and administrators promote inclusive, collaborative, and positive environments in the geo-ecosystem; implement and become practitioners of strategies to encourage and support students, individuals, and communities from marginalized and minoritized groups; and formalize relationships and institutionalize best practices for effective partnerships and whole system change. All NewGeo participants influence and inspire their professional and social networks, share within their communities of practice, and disseminate outcomes to the broader geoscience community for adaptation and adoption of the NewGeo model for cultural transformation at multiple levels.NewGeo creates community-centered career pathways for participants from minoritized and marginalized groups and engages a traditionally excluded non-academic community in the scientific discourse. NewGeo is spearheaded by a graduate student cohort that transforms their education and challenges geoscience culture through collaborative, self-directed engagement with non-academic partners. Graduate student environment community-outreach graduate assistants (ECO GAs) leverage their academic preparation and build career skills through place-based experiential learning experiences in collaboration with NewGeo partners. Activities include embedded community-based internships, K-12 outreach, volunteerism, mentoring of undergraduates, and professional and leadership development. Faculty and administrators activate their capital as change agents for revolutionizing the geosciences (CHARGE) to induce cultural transformation. The cohort is CHARGEd to research, create, institutionalize and disseminate NewGeo best practices, policies and procedures, while engaging in self-guided and reflective professional development.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.