S-STEM: Training for Environmental Stewardship of the US Virgin Islands

维尔京群岛大学（UVI）正在为20名学术上有才华，但经济上有困难的加勒比自然资源保护和管理学生提供培训和财政支持，其海洋和环境科学硕士（MMES）计划。MMES计划是为了满足该地区对专业培训的需求，该地区的自然资源受到严重威胁，其经济可行性与当地环境状况密切相关。 UVI学生和美属维尔京群岛人口主要由STEM相关领域代表性不足的群体组成。 这些群体中的许多人发现，资助教育到科学硕士的水平是不可能的，因此进入其他职业。 UVI正在帮助填补专业人士的需要与加勒比自然资源保护和管理的理解，从代表性不足的群体招收学生，并提供财政支持，学术辅导，教师导师，并资助研究和旅行专业会议。UVI的S-STEM项目的智力价值是基于MMES计划的成功，让来自代表性不足的群体的学生早期参与当地相关的研究，并制定新的方法来保护加勒比地区的自然资源。 该项目通过培训一批不同的未来科学家，在领土内外产生广泛影响，这些科学家最终将成为维尔京群岛自然资源和世界各地类似环境的管理者。

The University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) is providing training and financial support for 20 academically talented, but financially challenged students in Caribbean natural resource conservation and management in its Masters of Marine and Environmental Science (MMES) program. The MMES program is responding to a demonstrated need for professional training in this region with serious threats to its natural resources and whose economic viability is closely tied to the state of the local environment. UVI students and the U.S. Virgin Islands population are comprised predominantly of groups underrepresented in STEM related fields. Many individuals in these groups find that financing education to the level of Masters of Science impossible and therefore move into other careers. UVI is helping to fill the need for professionals with understanding of Caribbean natural resource conservation and management by recruiting students from under-represented groups and providing financial support, academic tutoring, faculty mentors, and funding for research and travel to professional meetings. The intellectual merit of UVI's S-STEM project is based in the MMES program's success in involving students from under-represented groups early in locally-relevant research and developing novel approaches to the conservation of the natural resources of the Caribbean. This project has broad impacts within the territory and beyond through its training of a diverse cadre of future scientists who will ultimately be stewards of the natural resources of the Virgin Islands and similar environments around the world.