Planning Grant: Developing capacity to attract diverse students to the geosciences: A public relations framework

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A persistent lack of diversity in Geosciences robs the discipline of unique perspectives, experiences, values, and motivations that contribute to stronger scientific outcomes. For the field to grow and attract a more diverse population, geoscientists need to modify how they frame the field to reflect the breadth of the discipline more accurately and in ways that align with potential students’ interests. This project addresses how to attract students to Geosciences so they contribute to the field including to a range of socially relevant career options that impact water quality and sustainability, alternative energy, pursue solutions to climate-related issues, as well as careers that use cutting-edge computing and data science. This project will use surveys and focus groups to discover what types of marketing materials best appeal to students in various stages of career awareness. By first learning what appeals to potential geosciences students at California State University, Chico, the team will then use that feedback to design marketing materials that appeal to students in high school, two-year colleges, and first-year undergraduates at CSU, Chico.It will create an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional team who will collaboratively investigate representations of the geosciences that attract diverse populations to the discipline. The team will design, develop, and test marketing materials intended to attract diverse student populations. The research team will systematically collect and compile data about what attracts students to the geosciences through content analysis, focus groups, and surveys. The study population will be students in introductory-level STEM courses at CSU, Chico, and in area high schools and two-year colleges. Results will identify the types of frames that attract current and future students to geosciences and will be disseminated in geoscience conference presentations and publications. The evidence-based recruiting materials created from this research will be freely available to download, adapt and use by geoscience programs and departments at other institutions. Downstream results of this project are expected to include attracting more diverse student populations to the geosciences, which will broaden participation in higher education and the STEM workforce and contribute to societal needs.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.