GP-IN: Getting your feet wet: Advancing geoscience education using water-based field experiences

Geoscientists are a crucial part of the U.S. workforce and help the nation address societal challenges such as water security and climate change. Twenty-seven percent of the existing geoscience workforce is predicted to retire over the next decade, creating a gap between workforce needs and the availability of career-ready geoscientists. A challenge is that most high school teachers and their students are largely unaware of the geosciences as a potential career pathway.

Therefore, this project aims to increase recruitment of students into this important field and overcome the awareness gap by training high-school teachers on how to integrate place-based geoscience field activities into the classroom. Using water as a theme, the project will show how the geosciences are integrated into water resources and management activities.

Geoscience faculty at Missouri S&T will work with teachers and 4H leaders to develop field activities and accompanying curriculum modules. The activities will be field-based and revolve around local field sites with streams, lakes, caves, and/or springs. By providing teachers with the ability to deliver exciting geoscience content to their high-school students, the project will ultimately increase the number of students who pursue geoscience careers.

This outcome will benefit society, as a highly trained geoscience workforce is central to the needs of current and emerging environmental fields in the United States.

The goal of the project is to increase the college enrollment of students in the geosciences and geoscience-related disciplines, thereby increasing the pool of career-ready geoscientists. The approach is to train high-school teachers how to engage students outside the classroom using the dynamic concept of local water resources as the geoscience entry point.

In this way the project will engage students in non-geoscience classrooms to learn geoscience concepts, and use both formal and informal educational avenues to test the efficacy of both venues. Through collaboration with Geoscience faculty at Missouri S&T, the project's focus will be on providing research and training experiences for teachers and high school students in rural communities in Missouri.

Objectives are to: (1) Develop field-based and hands-on activities for high school students that introduce them to careers in the geosciences while building on interdisciplinary interests, (2) Prepare teachers in Missouri to lead these activities and integrate them into classroom discussions, and (3) Assess the efficacy of the activities for increasing applied geoscience content knowledge and enthusiasm for geosciences career paths.

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.