GP-IMPACT: Expanding HBCU Pathways for Geoscience Education

尽管有意义的STEM多样性和包容性的努力，非洲裔美国人仍然不成比例地在地球科学中代表不足。虽然国家标准早在六年级就引入了该领域，但许多教师缺乏开发内容或自信地提供地球科学教学和职业指导的能力。 历史上黑人学院和大学（HBCU）是未开发的资源和机会，以满足这些需求。扩大HBCU途径地球科学教育项目建议开发和部署一个深入的评估，以（1）影响中学教师准备课程和专业发展活动，以实现（2）提高非裔美国人在地球科学中的代表性的目标。系统方法将产生一个评估和增强工具，使用户能够评估其机构方法，包括HBCU和其他实体在地球科学方法，实践和成果方面的循证最佳做法;行政领导;以及机构支持，特别强调职前教师准备课程和方案。 评估和加强是拟议工作的两个组成部分，各机构可利用这两个组成部分来规范性地解决已查明的任何差距。随着工具（评估增强）的2个阶段的开发，然后相互映射，该团队预计将识别出缺乏或缺少增强工具以满足需求的空白。& 例如，HBCU途径小组以往的集体经验表明，需要编写和测试与文化相关的材料，因为这些材料对于接触和吸引来自代表性不足群体的学生至关重要。 这些材料将帮助这些学生团体看到他们可以在地球科学的职业生涯和/或重大培训中扮演的角色。 这些步骤中的每一个都是系统地确定地球科学增加多样性的前进道路所必不可少的，以便我们可以更全面地解决现有的环境问题，并将在未来几年继续揭示。支持非裔美国人在地球科学，包括地球科学教育。 由于地球科学的多样性和包容性的努力，在过去的半个世纪已经导致了不太明显的增长，HBCU路径团队将使用一系列的关键组件，以支持非洲裔美国人在地球科学的成功，为发展的评价组成部分的文书。其中包括机构/方案支助的力度以及针对职前和在职教师的地球科学课程和活动的能力。因此，HBCU途径将提供一个战略性的多层面解决方案（1）影响中学教师准备课程和专业发展活动，以实现（2）改善少数民族获得地球科学的目标。这一多层面和可扩展的解决方案将在前12个月在3个机构开发和测试，在后12个月在另外2个机构开发和测试。 在每个阶段，增强资源将被审查和映射，以推荐特定地点的规定性资源，以加强机构提供实践培训，开发地球科学内容，并将地球科学纳入HBCU职前教师准备课程和计划的努力。核心跨学科团队和其他合作伙伴和顾问将利用理论驱动的干预设计和评估过程，制定有效，可持续和可扩展的机构和方案级干预措施。该方法将用于支持干预措施的制定，从一开始就将主要利益相关者，特别是教师教育工作者，区域学校系统代表和地球科学家聚集在一起，以审查和解决拟议的方法，以实现合理，可行和可测试的评估方法和增强活动。这也将与理事会的教育工作者准备标准认证保持一致。此外，这一集中精力系统地开发和完成一个可扩展的，互动的，利益相关者-该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过利用基金会的智力价值和经验进行评估，被认为值得支持。更广泛的影响审查标准。

Despite meaningful STEM diversity and inclusion efforts, African Americans remain disproportionately underrepresented in the geosciences. Though national standards introduce the field as early as the 6th grade, many teachers lack the proficiency to develop content or to confidently deliver instruction and career guidance in the Earth Sciences. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) are untapped resources and opportunities to meet these needs. The Expanding HBCU Pathways to Geoscience Education project proposes to develop and deploy a deep-dive assessment to (1) impact middle school teacher preparation curricula and professional development activities toward the goal of (2) improving African American representation in the geosciences. The systematic approach will result in an Evaluation and Enhancement Tool that will allow the user to assess their institutional approach with evidence-based best practices of HBCUs and other entities in geoscience methods, practices, and outcomes; administrative leadership; and institutional support with particular emphasis on pre-service teacher preparation curricula and programs. Evaluation and Enhancement are two components of the proposed work, which may be used by institutions to prescriptively address any gaps that are identified. As the 2 stages of the Tool (Evaluation & Enhancement) are developed and then mapped to each other, this team anticipates that voids will be identified for which there are inadequate or missing Enhancement Tools to meet the need. For example, previous collective experience of the HBCU Pathways group indicates that culturally relevant materials will need to be developed and tested as they are critical in reaching and attracting students from underrepresented groups. These materials would help these student groups see the role that they can fill with a career and/or significant training in the Geosciences. Each of these steps is essential in systematically determining the path forward for increasing diversity in the Geosciences so that we may more holistically address the environmental issues that exist and that will continue to be revealed in coming years.The Expanding HBCU Pathways to Geoscience Education project will develop and test an Evaluation and Enhancement Tool that can be used by HBCUs and other institutions that reach or aspire to attract and support African Americans in the Geosciences, including Geoscience Education. Because geoscience diversity and inclusion efforts over the past half century have resulted in a less than notable increase, the HBCU Pathways Team will use a range of critical components to supporting the success of African Americans in the Geosciences for the development of the Evaluation component of the Instrument. These include strength of institutional/ programmatic support and capacity for geoscience curricula and activities, while targeting pre-service and in-service teachers. Thus, HBCU Pathways will deliver a strategic multidimensional solution (1) to impact middle school teacher preparation curricula and professional development activities toward the goal of (2) improving minority access to the geosciences. This multidimensional and scalable solution will be developed and tested at 3 institutions in the first 12 months and 2 additional institutions in the second 12 months. At each stage, Enhancement Resources will be vetted and mapped to recommend site-specific prescriptive resources to fortify efforts by institutions to offer hands-on training, develop geoscience content, and deliver geosciences into HBCU pre-service teacher preparation curricula and programs. Core interdisciplinary teams and additional partners and advisors, will utilize a theory-driven process of intervention design and evaluation to develop an effective, sustainable, and scalable institutional and programmatic-level intervention. The approach will be used to support the development of interventions by bringing together key stakeholders, particularly Teacher Educators, Regional School-System Representatives, and Geoscientists from the start to scrutinize and address proposed approaches to achieving plausible, feasible, and testable assessment methods and enhancement activities. This will also be aligned with the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation standards. Additionally, this focused effort to systematically develop and complete testing of a scalable, interactive, stakeholder-driven deep dive process will assist the HBCU and broader Education community in advancing geoscience education and workforce development by accessing the untapped HBCU community resources and opportunities.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.