GP-IN: Discovering Pathways into the Geosciences through EarthBus Partnership

Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and Department of Geosciences have partnered with other entities to form an “EarthBus Partnership”. The alliance is designed to increase the diversity of student participation in geosciences. The project targets earth science students and teachers at the middle and high school levels, and community college students.

The project goal is to train 2,500 high school students, 120 earth science teachers, and 50-60 community college students over the life of the project. Expected results are to increase interest in geosciences as well as improved student performance on State mandated instruction, and to equip teachers with strategies and techniques for helping students engage in project-based learning in the earth sciences.

These outcomes will be achieved through a multi-pronged approach by using classrooms, BioBus vehicles as mobile labs, use of drone technology and field research. Also, the PIs will reach out to school districts on Long Island to collaborate on field research projects. The proposed outreach will allow the PIs to test the impact of integrating school districts from different economic levels in learning.

The “EarthBus Partnership” aims to improve participation of diverse groups of students in geoscience fields. This will be done by recruiting and mentoring students at high schools with large populations of underrepresented students, and bringing awareness of geoscience careers as fulfilling employment paths in private industry, government service, and academia.

The project targets earth science students and teachers at the middle and high school levels, and community college students. The goals are: (1) to increase interest in the geosciences as well as improve performance on State mandated instruction and use phenomena based learning as a tool to increase understanding of the New York State Learning Standards and federal Next Generation Science Standards; (2) to provide teachers with strategies and techniques to help students engage in project-based learning with real world earth science tasks, open-ended investigations, and the engineering and design processes. (3) to provide short-term employment and research opportunities to high school and community college students, so they see earth science as a possible career path; (4) to engage earth science teachers in better understanding and curriculum design focusing on current research areas and techniques in the geosciences; and (5) to test the efficacy of school-district integration and collaboration across different economic status in student engagement and learning.

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.