A Grassroots Effort to Diversify Solar and Heliospheric Physics

这笔计划拨款正用于开发Helio-Protegee(使用基层教育经验实现平等的物理研究机会)计划，该计划是一项草根努力，旨在吸引来自不同背景的有才华的学生参与太阳物理主题的实践研究体验，并指导学生太阳物理学，以便他们可以成功地进入NSF-REU暑期研究计划。该计划的动机是令人生畏的统计数据。非洲裔美国人在所有级别的物理学中的比例都很低，据估计，在美国大约1200名太阳、地球空间和日球层物理学家中，非洲裔美国人只占1%左右。招募少数民族学生学习太阳物理学的一个困难是简单的地理。54%的非裔美国人生活在美国东南部地区，77%的历史上的黑人学院和大学(HBCU)在东南部。然而，绝大多数的太阳物理学家生活和工作在这个地区之外。阿拉巴马大学亨茨维尔分校和马歇尔太空飞行中心的太阳物理学研究小组是值得注意的例外。这些机构位于21所HBCU的四小时车程内，为让不同学生参与实践地球科学活动提供了理想的资源，促进了该领域招收代表不足的学生。已被证明成功吸引和留住STEM学科非裔美国学生的两项关键技术是指导和纳入研究项目。Helio-Protegee计划的最终目标是让大量未被充分代表的学生接触到太阳物理学的研究机会，与HBCU的教职员工建立可持续的联系，与感兴趣的学生发展导师关系，并招收现有和正在进行的太阳物理学暑期研究项目的学生，特别是NSF面向本科生的太阳物理学研究经验(REU)项目。正在进行的规划工作将确定在美国东南部10所目标大学开展有意义的外联活动的战略，并邀请感兴趣的STEM专业的学生参加太阳物理学入门研讨会。规划工作的一个目标是与一小部分学生发展指导关系，以帮助他们找到REU职位，并为他们提供更多的太阳物理背景经验。

This planning grant is being used to develop the Helio-PROTEGEE (Physics Research Opportunity Toward Equality using a Grassroots Education Experience) program, which is a grassroots effort to engage talented students from diverse backgrounds in hands-on research experiences in heliophysics topics, and to mentor students in heliophysics so that they may be successfully placed in NSF-REU summer research programs. The program is motivated by daunting statistics. African-Americans are under-represented in physics at all levels, and it is estimated that African-Americans make up only about 1% of the approximately 1200 solar, geospace and heliospheric physicists in the United States. One difficulty of recruiting minority students to heliophysics is simple geography. Fifty-four percent of African-American's live in the Southeast region of the United States and 77% of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are in the Southeast. The vast majority of heliophysicists, however, live and work outside of this region. The heliophysics research groups at University of Alabama-Huntsville and the Marshall Space Flight Center are notable exceptions. These institutions are situated within a four-hour drive of 21 HBCUs, offering an ideal resource for engaging diverse students in hands-on geoscience activities, facilitating recruitment of under-represented students into the field.Two key techniques that have been proven to successfully engage and retain African- American students in STEM disciplines are mentoring and inclusion in research programs. The ultimate goal of the Helio-PROTEGEE program is to expose a large number of under-represented students to research opportunities in heliophysics, to cultivate sustainable connections with faculty at the HBCU's, to develop mentor relationships with interested students, and to recruit students for existing and on-going heliophysics summer research programs, specifically NSF heliophysics research experience for undergraduate (REU) programs. The planning effort underway will define strategies for conducting meaningful outreach at 10 targeted universities in the southeastern US and engaging interested STEM majors in introductory heliophysics workshops. One goal of the planning effort is to develop mentoring relationships with a fraction of the students so as to help them find REU positions and provide them with additional background experiences in solar physics.