GP-EXTRA: Building a new generation of urban environmental scholar-citizens through community-based programs for science and impact

GSTDTAP

项目编号	1701132
	GP-EXTRA: Building a new generation of urban environmental scholar-citizens through community-based programs for science and impact
	Gabriel Filippelli
主持机构	Indiana University
项目开始年	2017
	2017-08-01
项目结束日期	2020-07-31
资助机构	US-NSF
项目类别	Standard Grant
项目经费	428085(USD)
国家	美国
语种	英语
英文摘要	Part I The overall goal of this project is to engage students from underrepresented backgrounds in the geosciences through targeted mentoring and extra-curricular community-engaged programs. The new generation of science students exhibits tremendous interest in direct application of their training for local and global good, and that ?bridge of relevance? is rarely adequately developed in the geosciences to take advantage of this passion. In an urban university like IUPUI, this new moral- and equity-driven student is one that is likely to be engaged in local transformation, more likely to be of economically, racially and/or culturally diverse background, and eager to serve their community. We will utilize several practices to engage students in this program, including a Thematic Learning Community to build confidence and support for students in the initial stage of their college career, a set of modules that will be developed in our majors courses that actively involve community-based examples of fundamental geoscience concepts, and the development and support of cohorts of Environmental Action Scholars, who will conceive and implement community-engaged projects in collaboration with our community partners. Collectively, these practices will institutionalize community-engagement and informed action in the geosciences, and thus provide relevance for students who might otherwise feel a disconnect between their geoscience classroom learning and their career goals. Part II The overall goal of this project is to engage students from underrepresented backgrounds in the geosciences through targeted mentoring and extra-curricular community-engaged programs in the Indianapolis area. Project objectives include: Utilizing Thematic Learning Communities (TLCs) to enhance recruitment of, and a sense of belonging among, underrepresented students in the geosciences; Developing four hybrid classroom-field modules to diversify educational experience and increase content knowledge in a manner that provides application of theoretical knowledge in a societally-relevant urban context; Implementing community-engaged pedagogy and project mentoring to retain, support, and promote the holistic formation of underrepresented students as geoscientists by developing Cohorts of Environmental Action Scholars and providing externship opportunities for these students in the community. The hypotheses that frame this work are (1) engaging science-interested but uncommitted students early and with mentor supports will enhance recruitment (both number and diversity), (2) providing practical place-based experiences that are linked to relevant societal challenges will personalize subject learning, and (3) supporting the implementation of topically-relevant projects in communities will provide the opportunities for learners to transition to experts. These hypotheses are developed on a theoretical platform of "situated learning" as applied to societally-relevant, and student-relevant, geoscience experiences. Findings will be disseminated to the broader scholarly community, and will simultaneously be informing geoscience and other STEM educators on how to improve their STEM teaching and student learning, as well as the impact of this project and related pedagogical efforts on motivating students from underrepresented populations to pursue careers in the geosciences. Broader impacts for geoscience education include development, testing, and disseminating novel geoscience-impacts modules, determining the efficacy of interventions at several critical junctures that narrow the diversity pipeline in the geosciences, and providing opportunities for students to contribute meaningfully to community priorities in the realm of the geosciences, and thus to be better prepared for the modern geoscience workforce.
文献类型	项目
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/71446
专题	环境与发展全球科技态势
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Gabriel Filippelli.GP-EXTRA: Building a new generation of urban environmental scholar-citizens through community-based programs for science and impact.2017.