GP-GO: The Appalachian SUCCESS Program: Strengthening students classified as Underrepresented in STEM by inspiring Confidence, Curriculum and Enriching Sensing Skillsets

该项目由已建立的激励竞争性研究计划(EPSCoR)联合资助。该项目的目标是建立阿巴拉契亚成功计划，测试指导该计划发展的学习生态系统模式的有效性，并维持一个改进的指导计划，该计划将在拨款结束后继续进行，以帮助来自肯塔基州东部和西弗吉尼亚州阿巴拉契亚贫困社区的学生。PIS寻求通过家庭参与和服务学习来激发研究生的信心，增加研究生获得岩溶和水生科学领域的地球科学培训的机会，发展学生在传感器技术领域的技能，并增加学生的研究机会，从而为未来的研究和职业道路打开大门。该计划的重点是肯塔基大学、马歇尔大学和东肯塔基大学的一年级研究生，在某些情况下，还包括正在转型的本科生，这三所大学分别是卡内基R1、R2和M1大学。学生将沉浸在一个为期10个月的项目中，学习生态系统模式的组成部分旨在：通过与学习地球科学传感器技术的三所大学的学生队列合作，建立学生的信心；让学生的家庭和社区参与他们的课程，使信息的双向转移既增强研究生的信心，又让他们看到他们的工作对家庭成员和K-12学习的潜在变革性影响；帮助学生学习可以在研究生院使用的批判性思维；帮助他们探索和确定自己的地学兴趣和/或专业，以制定职业规划；为他们未来在协作团队和跨学科科学环境中的工作做好准备；并使用先进的传感器仪器进行独立研究项目。阿巴拉契亚成功计划旨在通过设计和测试一种新的方法，让学生参与真实的、与职业相关的地球科学体验，通过增加攻读研究生学位的学生数量来促进NSF的使命。为了扩大对地球科学的参与，该项目邀请了来自阿巴拉契亚地区的学生，他们在科学、技术、工程和数学方面历来没有得到充分的代表。来自阿巴拉契亚地区的学生经常面临与他们所在县的经济困境有关的障碍，他们在农村环境中获得教育资源的机会相对较低，以及因为他们是第一代学生而缺乏大学辅导资源。Success课程旨在通过一系列非技术和技术学习部分来帮助克服这些障碍。研究生学员将在整个项目期间与家人和教职员工会面，讨论职业发展轨迹，通过与中学或高中教师合作开发K-12科学课程并将内容传授给来自阿巴拉契亚家乡的学生来参与服务学习，参加行业和政府部门的实地考察，在那里他们了解地球科学的职业，并通过将新的传感器技术集成到地球科学中来在合作机构之间合作进行研究。教师导师和研究生将开展研讨会，以发展技术和软技能，最终在一个地区性科学会议上进行研究报告。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project is jointly funded by the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program. This project's goal is to establish the Appalachian SUCCESS program, test effectiveness of the learning ecosystem model guiding the program’s development, and sustain an improved mentoring plan that is carried forward after the grant ends for students from Appalachian distressed communities in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. PIs seek to inspire graduate student confidence through family engagement and service learning and increase graduate student access to geoscience training in the areas of karst and hyporheic science, develop student skills in the area of sensor technology, and increase research opportunities for students which can open doors to future research and career pathways. The program focuses on first year graduate students, and in some cases undergraduates in transition, at the University of Kentucky, Marshall University and Eastern Kentucky University, which are Carnegie R1, R2 and M1 universities, respectively. The students will be immersed in a 10-month-long program, and components of the learning ecosystem model aim to: build the students’ confidence through working with the tri-university cohort of students learning about sensor technology in geoscience; engage the students’ family and community in their curriculum so the two-way transfer of information both builds the graduate students confidence and allows them to see the potentially transformative impact of their work on family members and K-12 learning; help the students learn critical thinking that can be used in graduate school; help them explore and define their own geoscience interests and/or specializations to work towards a career plan; prepare them for future work in collaborative team and interdisciplinary scientific settings; and conduct independent research projects using advanced sensor instrumentation. The Appalachian SUCCESS Program aims to promote NSF’s mission by increasing the number of students pursuing graduate degrees through the design and testing of a novel approach that engages students in authentic, career-relevant experiences in geoscience. In order to broaden participation in the geosciences, the program engages students from Appalachia who are historically under-represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Students from this Appalachian region often face obstacles associated with the economic distress of the counties they live in, relatively low access to education resources in their rural environments, and lack of college mentoring resources because they are first-generation students. The SUCCESS curriculum is designed to help overcome these obstacles via a series of non-technical and technical learning components. Along with family and faculty, graduate student participants will meet throughout the program to discuss the career trajectories, engage in service learning by working with middle-school or high-school teachers to develop K-12 science curriculum and teach the content to students from their Appalachian hometowns, attend industry and government sector field trips where they learn about careers in the geosciences and work together across the partnering institutions to conduct research by integrating new sensor technology for the geosciences. Faculty mentors and graduate students will carry out workshops to develop technical and soft skills that culminate with research presentations at a regional science conference.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.