Collaborative Research: Implementation Grant: Navigating Home

Navigating Home will support recent on- and off-island graduates who identify as Black, Hispanic, Pacific Islanders or other underrepresented groups in the geosciences and who originally hail from one of three U.S. territory Hubs (Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) by placing them in new, marine and environmental science job opportunities.

Navigating Home is designed to contribute to the creation of an inclusive marine and environmental science research community that reflects the diversity of these islands. The goals of Navigating Home are to: (1) bring back, train, and retain islanders who have Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees in the marine and environmental sciences, and who are interested in being part of their home island’s workforce; (2) strengthen partnerships between island-based universities and their local partners through joint decision-making and co-design; (3) provide transdisciplinary training related to public engagement with science and community engagement; and (4) transform geoscience culture through these innovative strategies and partnerships, that will serve as model examples within and beyond the island communities in which they are based.

Over five years, the project will support 68 Fellows and 68 professionals from university and community partnering organizations in transdisciplinary geoscience enrichment opportunities. This project will benefit from the early successes of the NSF INCLUDES SEAS Islands Alliance, NSF EPSCoR investments, and integrating the NSF-funded STEMAP program into island-based community engagement.

It will broaden participation in STEM by supporting individuals from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups who are also from the island regions and increase diversity in local and national STEM workforces, resulting in greater creativity and innovation in problem solving. Navigating Home will transform local geoscience learning ecosystems and serve as a model program in transforming geoscience culture, stabilizing STEM career pathways, and combating “brain drain” that affects many rural communities and especially, U.S. territories.

Project results will be shared broadly with local communities, and through national conferences and academic publications.

Navigating Home will nurture sustainable and long-term STEM learning and research ecosystems that build on the idea of learning ecosystems as a braided river, to foster “inclusive, responsive, and modern career development” (Bachelor et al., 2021). The project will leverage the NSF INCLUDES SEAS Islands Alliance to foster workforce opportunities in the islands through partnerships between universities and local partner organizations.

Inter-institutional partnerships may help mitigate traditional barriers and training silos while also addressing curricular misalignment between the undergraduate and graduate stages, especially for those students at Minority Serving Institutions that may lack access to graduate programs and faculty (Allen-Ramdial & Campbell 2014). Brokering is an important part of any learning ecosystem (Ching, Santo, Hoadley, & Peppler, 2016; Akiva, Kehoe, & Schunn, 2017; Penuel, Clark & Bevan, 2016; Allen et al., 2019), and will be a key feature of the work conducted by Hub teams (U.S.

Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam) as they collaborate to begin to transform the culture of geoscience workforce in these island communities to reflect the diversity of these island communities. Transdisciplinary training will be provided in mental health first aid (John and Kahn, 2018), and to strengthen the impact identities of fellows, faculty and partners (Risien & Storksdieck, 2018) and their ability to engage with local communities deeply and effectively.

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.