GP-IMPACT: Early College High School Pathways to Geoscience Majors and Careers: Full STEAM Ahead!

University Of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lexington KY

Investigators

Abstract

The University of Kentucky Department of Earth and Environmental Science (EES) and the Fayette County, Kentucky School District's STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) Academy will form a partnership to prepare students for careers in the geosciences while in high school. As society faces a potential shortage of geoscientists, this project is broadening the participation in the discipline by recruiting a diverse population of future geoscientists from underrepresented groups, and by easing their transition from high school to college. Building a model for similar collaborations between geoscience departments and the growing number of STEM-focused early-college high schools such as the STEAM Academy is another goal of this project. Such schools have been demonstrated to provide superior academic preparation, leading to higher rates of college enrollment and graduation in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. Because these schools primarily admit students through lotteries, their student population is diverse and contains groups frequently underrepresented in the geoscience discipline. Most STEM students choose their major while in high school or before and these schools specifically emphasize career paths in STEM. Currently, these schools focus on health sciences and engineering. Lack of exposure to the geosciences prior to the critical transition between high school and college is often cited as a reason for the low numbers of geoscience majors. By capitalizing on a pre-existing model of STEM recruitment, this project is testing its application to the geosciences in both recruiting and retaining geoscience students. This project is testing the hypothesis that earlier exposure to careers in the geoscience will increase the number of students recruited into the field, and that the students will be more diverse than current geoscience undergraduate demographics. Students are being given a three-part opportunity to transition towards a college degree and a career in the geosciences. All students in the STEAM Academy are participating in geoscience-focused problem-based learning units (Exposures) designed and taught in collaboration by faculty members of both EES and STEAM. These units are teaching geoscience content through building scientific thinking skills, while exposing students to potential jobs in the geosciences. Students who become interested in the geosciences then have an opportunity to participate in a semester-long Internship in EES laboratories during their sophomore year, followed by a transition into a "Geoscience Career Pathway" through coursework in EES on the UK campus during their junior and senior years, all while continuing a discipline-specific customized curriculum at the STEAM Academy. Using mixed-methods (pre- and post-testing and surveys using the Geoscience Concept Inventory), changes are being tracked in students' awareness of and attitudes towards careers in the geosciences, as well as changes in the students' understanding of basic geologic concepts as they progress through the three levels of the program. The project seeks to identify and address any obstacles that the students may be encountering. The project also is assessing the educational effectiveness of the Exposures units within the framework of the Next Generation Science Standards and modifying them as necessary, with an end goal of disseminating the material nationally. Longitudinal data to assess the effectiveness of the partnership is also being collected.