Promoting and Sustaining geoscience and related disciplines with PSU EnvironMentors for underserved and underrepresented minority NY, NJ, and PA Communities (GEOENV)
Diversity in STEM continues to be a critical issue in postsecondary and workforce realms. In the GEOPATH disciplines of Earth, Oceanic, and Atmospheric Sciences, the problem is amplified with very limited success in attracting, retaining, and graduating underrepresented minority (URM) students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Several factors inhibit URM STEM engagement including exposure, mentoring, experiential learning, and math and science preparation. To counteract the impact of these limiting factors, a focused GEOPATH component, designated GEOENV, will be added to the Penn State EnvironMentors program, which provides high school students a research experience throughout the academic year through group mentorship from faculty, postdocs, graduate, and undergraduate students. GEOENV will provide additional opportunities for URM STEM engagement for high school students, with the aim of steering URM students toward college/university Geoscience majors/disciplines and careers/jobs.
Prior to declaring a major in high school and accepting enrollment at a university/college, GEOENV will recruit 16 freshman, sophomore, and junior year high school students per year from 4 locations located in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, representing varied demographic and socioeconomic status. The temporal evolution of this engagement will be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed from pre-and post-surveys and tracking the degree to which student participants major in a geoscience discipline during their college matriculation. High school student participants are assigned to a research team and develop a research project as part of the EnvironMentors program and focus on a GEOPATH discipline in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State University. From yearlong work on a research project, high school student participants present a research poster and papers as final products. GEOENV will also include seminars with cross-cutting themes during the academic year to increase the exposure of participants to GEOPATH disciplines. High school teachers will also participate to deepen their knowledge of education of STEM education and research activities in GEOPATH disciplines through a 3-day workshop held at Penn State University each year. Participating teachers are also encouraged to become part of a research team during the academic school year.
This initiative provides $1,500 each for 16 undergraduate research participants and $500 for research activities for 16 high school student research participants throughout the 3-year funding cycle of the program.
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