GEOPAths-UP: Recruiting and Retaining Nongeoscience Minority STEM Majors for Geoscience Service Learning and for the Geoscience Workforce II

最近的研究大多数都对国家的STEM劳动力，特别是地球科学劳动力发出了警报。这些研究强调：1）STEM对国家福祉，安全和全球竞争力的重要性; 2）STEM学科的公平，准入，增加入学率和多样性的需求;以及3）STEM劳动力短缺的当前和预计增加。当前和未来STEM劳动力满足国家科学和技术需求的持续能力受到现有STEM专业人员数量急剧下降的威胁。该项目旨在帮助改善国家的地球科学困境，为来自结构上被排除在STEM之外的社区的非地球科学STEM学生创建一个全年的地球科学劳动力准备，地球科学服务学习和地球科学职业指导计划。该计划的总体目标是通过利用非传统和多样化的学生群体，为地球科学劳动力构建一条创新，可行和可持续的途径。该计划具有附加值，因为它不仅培养了地球科学工作者，而且还支持地球科学教育，促进多样性和包容性，并通过培养具有地球科学素养的公民来造福整个社会。 该计划旨在实现以下两个主要目标：1）拓宽非地球科学少数STEM专业的地球科学劳动力途径; 2）创建多部门地球科学劳动力发展基础设施。第一个目标的目标是在地球科学过渡劳动力计划的EPA-E主题中描述的：暴露：将本科毕业生暴露在地球科学中，准备：为本科毕业生提供关键的地球科学劳动力技能和专业网络，APPRENTICESHIP：通过地球科学应用，让本科毕业生参与有意义的现实世界，服务和体验式学习，以及经验：最终进入/与地球科学实习劳动力的经验。 第二个目标的具体目标与上述学徒制组成部分有关：a）为地球科学工作者建立一个学生-教师-行业的指导模式; B）在参与组织中建立专业的劳动力发展结构，c）设计同行指导支持结构，d）让学生参与地球科学服务学习，为参与者提供相关的主动学习，该奖项反映了NSF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。

There is a preponderance of recent studies that sound the alarm concerning the nation’s STEM workforce in general and its geoscience workforce in particular. These studies highlight: 1) the importance of STEM to the nation’s well-being, security, and global competitiveness; 2) the need for equity, access, increased enrollment, and diversity in STEM disciplines; and 3) the current and projected increase in STEM workforce shortage. The sustained capacity of the current and future STEM workforce to meet the nation’s scientific and technological needs is threatened by a sharp decline in the number of available STEM professionals. This project seeks to help in ameliorating the nation’s geoscience plight by creating a year-round geoscience workforce preparation, geoscience service learning, and geoscience career mentoring program for non-geoscience STEM students who come from communities that have been structurally excluded in STEM. The overall goal of the program is to construct an innovative, viable, and sustainable pathway to the geoscience workforce by tapping into a non-traditional and diverse pool of students. The program has added values in that it not only replenishes the geoscience workforce, but it also supports geoscience education, promotes diversity and inclusion, and benefits society as a whole by producing geoscience literate citizens. The program is designed to achieve the following two primary goals: 1) to broaden the geoscience workforce pathway for non-geoscience minority STEM majors; and 2) to create a multi-sector geoscience workforce development infrastructure. The objectives of the first goal are delineated in the following EPA–E theme of the geoscience transitional workforce program: EXPOSURE: Expose undergraduate seniors to the geosciences, PREPARATION: Provide undergraduate seniors with critical geoscience workforce skills and professional networks, APPRENTICESHIP: Engage undergraduate seniors in meaningful real-world, service and experiential learning via geoscience applications, and EXPERIENCE: Culminate into/with a geoscience internship-workforce experience. The objectives of the second goal are associated with the Apprenticeship component above: a) Create a student-faculty-industry paradigm of mentoring for the geoscience workforce; b) Create a professional workforce development structure among participating organizations, c) Design peer-to-peer mentoring support structures, and d) Engage students in geoscience service-learning that provides participants with relevant, active-learning, neighborhood-scale geoscience activities that engage and empower the local community by raising awareness to the environment and by assisting in developing citizen scientists.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.