GP-IN: Alaska Aquaculture Science Knowledge (ASK)

This project is jointly funded by the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program and IUSE.

GEOPath Informal Networks: Alaska Aquaculture Science Knowledge (ASK) will strengthen and sustain the educational and career pathways that engage and retain Alaska Native and rural Alaska precollege students who are currently under represented in STEM fields. ASK will build skills and competency in aquaculture which is critical to feeding the nation and world in the coming decades and vital to the national economy and workforce.

The goals of the project will advance prosperity and welfare by creating a labor force that can help assure food security in the coming decades. This project will evaluate the strategies of including and validating rural and Alaska Native culture into a field science curriculum, provide hands on learning experiences and engage populations that have historically been excluded in STEM.

The project will demonstrate to other coastal communities, biological field stations, and hatcheries in rural areas how a collaboration between industry, school districts and a university or community college, can facilitate student engagement in research and engage the aquaculture industry and universities in recruiting students who have basic geoscience skills.

The goal of ASK is to provide aquaculture educational experiences to pre-college rural and Alaska Native students to transition successfully into undergraduate programs or directly into the STEM workforce by demonstrating that their cultural background, worldview and experiences are relevant and valuable to academic study and careers in geosciences. This will be done through four objectives: 1.

Institute an off campus, salmon hatchery-based course that introduces upper level high school students to aquaculture 2. Provide mentored, hands-on research opportunities for pre-college students. 3. Create a job fair for aquaculture and fisheries related fields specifically for these students and 4.

Offer a paid summer internship for upper level high school students at a working salmon hatchery. The Sitka Sound Science Center, the University of Alaska Southeast Sitka, Mt. Edgecumbe High School, Sitka High School and Pacific High School have extensive experience working together and creating successful STEM programs that serve the specific needs of Alaska Natives and rural Alaskan students.

The needs of engagement for these populations require inclusion and validation of cultural experiences and an emphasis on how new STEM skills and knowledge can be extensions of traditional Native and rural cultures. The class for three high schools that serve low income, Alaska Native and rural students, will cover a broad range of aquaculture content, including oceanography, marine science, forest ecology, ecological studies of watersheds and aquatic and marine sciences as well as hatchery skills, fish culture and mariculture concepts.

Place-based, hands on teaching will validate rural and Alaska Native cultural experiences in the outdoors and demonstrate how those experiences apply to aquaculture. Students who successfully participate in this program will be offered an independent, mentored research project for dual credit. Outcomes of this project will be a clear pathway for rural and Alaska Native high school students into university programs and industry jobs.

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.