Increasing Participation and Persistence in STEM by Incorporating Field-Based Experiences in an Urban Environment

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Implementation and Evaluation (Track 2) project aims to engage undergraduate students in field-based activities at two urban institutions: California State University Los Angeles and Mt. San Antonio College. These institutions are located in the greater Los Angeles area, and they serve a commuter-student population.

Financial and logistical challenges have made it difficult to augment science courses with field-based activities, despite their documented benefits. The field-based activities will take place in lower-division biology, chemistry and earth science courses and are expected to increase participation and retention of minoritized students in these disciplines.

Outcomes from this project should reduce barriers to participation in field-based activities by training instructors in safe field-based practices, and lowering costs associated with field activities.

The set of proposed activities will increase persistence rates across the four majors (Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Geology and Natural Sciences) at the two institutions due to the introduction of engaging field-course experiences that allow students to work in a group setting and connect to environmental issues in their local communities. This work will also increase fieldwork participation rates in the selected majors, which currently have low numbers of minoritized students at both campuses.

This is critical to increasing representation, especially Latinx students, in the environmental workforce. Program success will be tracked through pre- and post-course surveys where new field-based activities are implemented. In addition, student and faculty focus groups will be used to assess outcomes at various levels as well as track any related institutional changes.

The student population at both participating campuses includes a high proportion of Latinx and other students similarly underrepresented in their participation in STEM fields of study, which should broaden participation in the introductory courses of these majors. This project seeks to increase participation and persistence rates among minoritized students in field-based disciplines in which they are highly underrepresented, which should result in a more diverse workforce and an increase in minority role models for future students.

The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity at HSIs. Achieving these aims, given the diverse nature and context of the HSIs, requires innovative approaches that incentivize institutional and community transformation and promote fundamental research (i) on engaged student learning, (ii) about what it takes to diversify and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves our understanding of how to build institutional capacity at HSIs.

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.