Currently, Penn State Sustainability has had to pause our full support for the EnvironMentors because of staff changes. While we currently do not have a fulltime staff to coordinate the program’s activities, we are hopeful we will be able to hire an Assistant Director of Youth Leadership and Empowerment in the coming months.

 

In the meantime, we are fortunate to have an excellent and committed team of champions distributed across Penn State. We are especially grateful to you who have been faculty advisers, our GeoPath partners, and leaders at Harrisburg, Schuylkill, Shenango, and University Park campuses.  If your question is about participating at the program at a particular campus, please see Our Team for contact information. 

 

About the program:

EnvironMentors is a college access program for underrepresented and underserved high school students across the country, created by the Global Council for Science and the Environment (GCSE). EnvironMentors has the mission to mentor and motivate high school students from underrepresented and underserved communities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). With the guidance of individual mentors, EnvironMentors students gain exposure to STEM degrees and career opportunities and enhance their research, critical thinking, and communication skills. Since its creation, the program has paired over 2,000 high school students with mentors across the nation.

Penn State joined the EnvironMentors network in 2018 and has the goal of changing the narrative in STEM by connecting underrepresented college and high school students across Pennsylvania to STEM opportunities via its resources. The Penn State EnvironMentors chapter is now housed in the Sustainability Institute at University Park, having previously been housed in the Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE) there.

In the Penn State model of EnvironMentors, high school students are paired with a faculty or staff mentors and undergraduate student mentors. Together, they plan and conduct research projects throughout the academic year. This research is culminated into a presentation to be given at the Penn State EnvironMentors research symposium at the end of the academic year. Through mentorship, we hope that healthy, positive, and impactful relationships are established within research groups.

 

Our Goals

For our chapter, our goals are the 3 R’s: Recruitment, Retention, and Role Models.

Recruitment: We hope to bring more underrepresented high school and undergraduate students into STEM fields.

Retention: Once these students are involved in the EnvironMentors program, we hope to maintain their interest in pursuing higher education in STEM-related and other studies

Role Models: In the EnvironMentors program, both undergraduate and high school students are paired with faculty or staff mentors that supervise, lead, and direct their research. The undergraduate mentor’s role is to be a mentor that the high students can come to with questions about college life and experiences. Through mentorship, we hope that healthy, positive, and impactful relationships are established within research groups.

 

Interested in becoming a part of the EnvironMentors?

Become a Student Mentee (High School Students)

Become an Undergraduate Student Mentor

Become a Faculty or Staff Mentor