GP-UP: Kansas City Explores Earth and the Environment (KC E3) – A program to support early college URM student success through mentoring and community-focused inquiry

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

Urban environmental hazards such as urban flooding and urban heat island disproportionally affect populations of color. The geoscience workforce tackling these challenges lacks the respective diversity to represent these populations. Kansas City Explores Earth and Environment (KC E3) is a ten-month cohort experience for early college students from historically excluded communities.

The program aims to increase participation and persistence of these students in the geosciences and support a more diverse workforce prepared to address environmental hazards and the people impacted by them. The KC E3 cohort of 2yr and 4yr college students will work together to develop a research project for a local summer high school community program, Kansas City Teen Summit, to investigate environmental hazards and their impact on urban landscapes.

The shared challenge of developing and leading the high school summer program will motivate KC E3 participants to support each other and apply their subject matter expertise to real world challenges in a supportive environment for participants who are transitioning into college. Program strengths will be identified to be reinforced in KC E3 and be used as a model for programs in similar locations.

Kansas City Explores Earth and Environment (KC E3) will recruit early college students, from historically excluded communities, who are enrolled in 2 yr and 4 yr colleges (2YC, 4YC) to participate in a ten-month cohort program. Mentors from STEM and student success backgrounds will support participants as they develop and lead an inquiry activity for a local non-profit summer program that supports students of color (Kansas City Teen Summit).

The unifying challenge of creating a research activity to help younger students collect and analyze data on a locally relevant environmental hazards (e.g. extreme rainfall, urban flooding, urban heat island, water and air quality) will encourage the KC E3 participants to develop a supportive cohort, and be motivated to leverage subject matter knowledge, while working in a space focused on supporting participants with the transition into college. Specifically, KC E3 aims to improve the sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and appreciation of the relevance of geoscience for students early in their college career and to increase the persistence of students from historically excluded communities through geoscience degrees and into the workforce.

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.