GP-EXTRA: Personal Relevance, Global Significance - Building Education and Career Pathways in Geosciences

南伊利诺伊大学爱德华兹维尔GEOPATHS项目是地理和环境科学系、STEM中心、学生课外组织和学术顾问之间的合作项目，重点是将代表性不足的种族和少数民族、妇女、退伍军人、残疾学生和其他群体纳入传统上缺乏多样性的地球科学专业社区。该计划旨在强调地球科学职业的重要性，为地球科学中代表性不足的群体开辟途径并减少获得学位的障碍，最终扩大区域地球科学劳动力的参与。该计划将由两组10名学生组成，他们将1)进行有助于解决该地区环境问题的地球科学研究，2)完成地球科学社区实习，3)进行两次夏季实地考察，4)接受地球科学技术技能培训，5)参加当地实地考察和研讨会，突出地球科学职业的多样性。该计划将降低地球科学学生成功的障碍，包括经济限制，这些限制可能会阻碍代表性不足的学生参加课外和课外活动的机会，从而获得雇主重视的额外专业技能。该项目的理论基础是研究社会影响及其在学生融入科学界中的作用，其项目元素旨在加强学者在大学学习过程中的自我效能感、科学认同感和价值观取向，最终进入研究生院和/或工作岗位。一个关键的创新是使用社会影响的三方整合模型（Estrada et al., 2011），这是一个尚未被地球科学教育研究人员仔细研究的理论框架。我们假设，通过强调地球科学研究和职业对社会的贡献，该计划将帮助学生看到地球科学的个人相关性和全球意义。项目评估组将开展严谨的研究探索学者的发展？自我效能感，身份认同和价值观，以及跟踪课程成绩，专业留校率，毕业率和毕业后活动。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville GEOPATHS program is a collaboration between the Geography and Environmental Sciences departments, STEM Center, student co-curricular organizations, and academic advisors focusing on integrating underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities, women, veterans, students with disabilities, and other groups into the geoscience professional community, which has traditionally lacked diversity. The program is designed to highlight the importance of geoscience careers, open pathways and reduce barriers to obtaining degrees for groups underrepresented in geosciences, and ultimately to broaden participation in the regional geoscience workforce. The program will consist of two cohorts of 10 students that will 1) conduct geoscience research that contributes to solving the region's environmental problems, 2) complete a geoscience community internship, 3) take two summer field excursions, 4) receive training in geoscience technical skills, and 5) participate in local field trips and seminars that highlight the diversity of geoscience careers. The program will lower barriers to geoscience student success, including financial limitations that can hinder underrepresented students' opportunities to participate in extra- and co-curricular activities, and thereby gain additional professional skills that employers value. The project is theoretically grounded in research on social influence and its role in student integration into the scientific community, with program elements intentionally designed to strengthen scholars' self-efficacy, science identity, and values orientation as they progress through the university, and ultimately to graduate school and/or the workforce. A key innovation is the use of the tripartite integration model of social influence (Estrada et al., 2011), a theoretical framework that has not been closely examined by geoscience education researchers. We hypothesize that by emphasizing how geoscience research and careers contribute to society, the program will help students see both the personal relevance and global significance of the geosciences. The project assessment team will conduct rigorous research exploring development of scholars? self-efficacy, identity, and values, as well as track course grades, retention in the majors, graduation rates, and post-graduation activities.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.