Scholarships for Geoscience Educational Opportunities

This NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S-STEM) project at Boise State University in Idaho is designed to help address the regional and national need for an estimated 135,000 new highly trained geoscientists within the next decade. The project will contribute to the geoscience workforce by increasing recruitment, retention to graduation, and preparation for and placement of students in careers or geosciences graduate programs while broadening participation, especially among underrepresented minority and female students. The project will span the university community from students satisfying their general education science requirements through geoscience undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty. Undergraduate students from all disciplines will benefit from the work of Learning Assistants (LAs) in introductory geoscience courses. Undergraduate geoscience majors (not only those receiving scholarships) will benefit from many program elements including improved metacognitive and computational skills, greater career awareness, continuity of teaching assistants (TAs), and the potential for on-campus jobs as LAs. Graduate students in the department will benefit from proposed modifications to TA assignments through pedagogical training associated with the curricular interventions. Both graduate and undergraduate students will benefit from recruiting diverse geoscientists to speak in the department seminar and from having those speakers share choices related to their career paths. Project results will be shared through various outlets to reach local, regional, and national colleagues.

The project will adapt established curricular and co-curricular interventions and study their impact on student success. The project has the following objectives: 1) provide scholarships and mentoring to cohorts of low-income, academically talented geoscience students; 2) enhance the BS Geosciences curriculum by implementing specific evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs), especially to improve metacognitive and computational thinking skills in students; 3) provide curricular and co-curricular opportunities for students to investigate and prepare for geoscience careers; and 4) study the impact of project activities on student success, retention, and degree attainment. The project has a comprehensive plan to generate new knowledge related to the impact of simultaneous curricular and co-curricular activities on cohorts of BS Geosciences students at a large public institution. The activities build strongly on successful practices implemented in the Department of Geosciences and leverage prior NSF support that helped develop effective S-STEM practices for recruiting and cohort building, helped promote the exploration and adoption of EBIPs among STEM faculty, and helped establish an overall focus on practices to promote student success. The project team and advisory board members represent a variety of campus perspectives and areas of expertise including geoscience, education, administration, advising and student support, diversity, faculty development, financial aid, institutional research, and industry. Faculty in the department will receive training in mentoring and on the use of several EBIPs. The project expects significant gains in first year retention rates and 4-year and 6-year graduation rate for both full time freshmen and transfer geoscience students as well as an increase in degrees conferred to underrepresented minority students and women.