REU SITE: Planetary Habitability Over Space and Time

地球科学中的两个主要概念是地质时间的尺度和数十亿年来可能发生的变化的幅度。与这些观念联系在一起的是生命在这一巨大时间跨度中的连续性。这些概念是理解我们周围自然世界的关键，也是一个成功社会的许多方面所必需的，例如能源的产生，自然资源的位置，以及允许长期社会稳定的立法的发展。这些想法与更广泛的美国人口的沟通一直很薄弱，导致对为社会产生能源的过程的理解不足，以及无效和/或低效的环境法规。因此，这项研究经验的目标是让学生接触到地球历史的这些核心概念，同时也为地球科学家提供就业机会的教育。每个学生将被分配一位导师，他将指导他们通过与地球科学和生命之间的相互作用有关的夏季研究经验。该计划将包括一个为期多日的实地考察，旨在让学生接触到生命和物理过程之间的关系，并将以一种可访问和智力丰富的形式呈现实地工作。该计划将为学生提供每周的专业发展研讨会，并将跟进秋季学期的机会，与同行在研究报告。招生将针对没有独立的本科地球科学课程的大学和当地社区学院的新生和应届生，以扩大本科生对地球科学的接触。休斯敦地区有超过10万名社区大学学生，以休斯敦的社区大学为目标将有助于增加申请人群体的多样性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Two main concepts in Earth sciences are the scale of geologic time and the magnitude of change possible when integrating over billions of years. Tied to these ideas is the continuity of life through this great span of time. These concepts are key to understanding the natural world around us and are necessary to many aspects of a successful society, such as the generation of energy, the location of natural resources, and the development of legislation that allows for long-term social stability. Communication of these ideas to the broader US population has been weak, resulting in poor understanding of the processes that generate energy for society and ineffective and/or inefficient environmental regulations. Thus the goal of this research experience is to expose students to these central concepts of Earth history while also providing education about career opportunities available to geoscientists.Each student will be assigned a mentor who will guide them through a summer research experience related to the interaction between Earth science and life. The program will include a multi-day field trip designed to expose students to the relationships between life and physical processes, and will present field work in a form that is accessible and intellectually enriching. The program will provide students with weekly professional development seminars and will follow up with fall semester opportunities to engage with peers in research presentations. Student recruiting will be targeted to freshmen and sophomores from universities without stand-alone undergraduate Earth science programs and from local community colleges, to broaden undergraduate exposure to the Earth sciences. There are more than 100,000 community college students in the Houston area and targeting Houston's community colleges will help increase the diversity of the applicant pool.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.