HR: 11:05h
AN: ED22A-04    [Abstracts]
TI: Earth Science Pipeline: Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences Through Outreach and Research
AU: * McGill, S F
EM: smcgill@csusb.edu
AF: Dept. Geol. Sci., Calif. State Univ., San Bernardino, 5500 Univ. Pkwy., San Bernardino, CA 92407 United States
AU: Fryxell, J E
AF: Dept. Geol. Sci., Calif. State Univ., San Bernardino, 5500 Univ. Pkwy., San Bernardino, CA 92407 United States
AU: Smith, A L
AF: Dept. Geol. Sci., Calif. State Univ., San Bernardino, 5500 Univ. Pkwy., San Bernardino, CA 92407 United States
AU: Leatham, W B
AF: Dept. Geol. Sci., Calif. State Univ., San Bernardino, 5500 Univ. Pkwy., San Bernardino, CA 92407 United States
AU: Brunkhorst, B J
AF: Dept. Geol. Sci., Calif. State Univ., San Bernardino, 5500 Univ. Pkwy., San Bernardino, CA 92407 United States
AB: Our efforts to increase diversity in the geosciences have been directed towards pre-college students and their teachers as well as towards undergraduate students. We made presentations about the geosciences and careers in geosciences at local schools, and we invited school groups to visit our campus (located near the San Andreas fault) for hands-on activities related to Earth Science. We also led field trips for high school students to other areas of geologic interest in southern California. We hired undergraduate students, including several from under-represented groups, from both our introductory and upper-division geology courses to help with these outreach activities. During 2001-2004, we conducted 169 outreach sessions that involved over 12,000 contact hours with about 5700 students, mostly middle and high school students. The majority (about 74%) of the students participating in these activities were from ethnic groups that are under-represented in the geosciences. Ninety per cent of the students said they would like to go on another field trip like the one they took to our department. At many outreach events we conducted a pre- and post-survey in which we asked students to what extent they agreed with the statement: "It would be fun to be a geologist." The pre-surveys indicated that 42% of the students either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement before participating in the outreach event. After participating, 61% of the students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. We have also offered summer field trips and research opportunities for high school teachers. In order to attract and retain undergraduate students to the geology major, we have recruited undergraduate students from under-represented groups (and high school teachers) to participate in various research projects. The two largest projects are (1) geologic mapping and monitoring of volcanoes on the island of Dominica, in the Lesser Antilles and (2) using the Global Positioning System (GPS) to monitor elastic strain accumulation across the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults along a 70-km-long transect near our campus. To date 80 participants have been involved in the GPS project, including 23 undergraduate students from under-represented ethnic groups and 23 teachers. Several participants have remained involved in the project, helping to process and model the GPS data, leading to presentations at SCEC and AGU meetings. In addition, all of our data has been submitted to the Southern California Earthquake Center's Data Center and is available for use by other scientists. Of the participants in the GPS project, 100% would recommend the program to other students or teachers, 93% regarded the experience as very worthwhile, and 81% said that the project had greatly increased their interest in the Earth Sciences. It is still too early to measure the long-term fruit of our work with middle and early high school students. However, our work with undergraduate students is already beginning to show some promise. During the four years prior to the start of our efforts, the average number of geology majors from under-represented groups in our department was 5 (22.7% of the total number of geology majors). During the three years of focused effort, the average was 8.3 students from under-represented groups (28.4% of the total). This work was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation's program Opportunities for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences.
DE: 1206 Crustal movements--interplate (8155)
DE: 0810 Post-secondary education
DE: 0830 Teacher training
DE: 0840 Evaluation and assessment
SC: Education and Human Resourcese [ED]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting