The EarthConnections Alliance developed a new model for geoscience education that linked opportunities to learn geoscience with community involvement across grade levels.  Working collaboratively, program partners from six national efforts to improve aspects of geoscience education came together with partners from three regions to create geoscience pathways in Atlanta, GA; San Bernardino, CA; and Oklahoma.

The goal of the Atlanta Alliance is to make pathways into geoscience careers visible to Atlanta's youth.  The Atlanta Alliance identified and brought together stakeholders in a series of meetings resulting in a shift in their understanding of Earth science and its relevance, as well as the opportunities for Earth learning by citizens of all ages. As a result geosciences in now being incorporated into community events and educators engaged in the program are asking for professional development so that they are better prepared to teach about these issues. The Atlanta Regional Alliance pathway map identifies how organizations, programs, institutions and individuals connect to provide pathways to geoscience careers addressing community led solutions to local challenges.

The Oklahoma Tribal Nations Alliance identified the problem of induced seismicity and associated implications for mitigation and energy-related jobs as a compelling community issue around which we could develop an educational pathway to help guide American Indian youth toward a geoscience career. The Alliance identified and brought together stakeholders, by reaching out to the Native community via the American Indian Institute, and honoring culture and tradition. This group created a process for our community to design potential pathways that we plan to implement in the future. These are shown on our pathway map.  A core group of stakeholders led by the Oklahoma Geological Survey are leading the project into this next phase.

The San Bernardino Alliance developed collaborative efforts to improve, contextualize, and connect introductory geoscience teaching at high schools, community colleges, and universities and to strengthen ties between the schools and local geoscience professional societies within Inland Southern California, focusing primarily on the societal issue of earthquake hazards. We established a planning group that crosses educational institutions, developed a plan for strengthening geoscience pathways in the area, and implemented activities to allow students interactions across institutions, strengthen teaching capacity, and grow community engagement.   These included  a joint field trip for students from the Etiwanda High School and Chaffey Community College; a field research opportunity for undergraduate students and M.S. students at CSUSB to work along side Ph.D. students and faculty from USC; work with high school teachers to teach a college-level honors geology course at their high school; and opportunities for professional geologists to interact with undergraduate and graduate level research students.

The EarthConnections project used its experience from these three regional efforts to gain a better understanding of how pathway formation could be supported in other areas.  We learned that educators and communities are excited about the EarthConnections pathway model. The first step in creating local pathways is to identify local community leaders who are well connected to existing activities and well positioned to lead a local effort.  Each of our pathways developed a pathway map describing their vision for a connected geoscience education landscape and situated existing programs within this map.  The maps became an important communication and planning tool and a mechanism for showing the evolving nature of local work.  We also developed a structure for supporting local groups in evaluating their efforts and identifying needed steps to move toward full implementation of the EarthConnections pathway vision.

An important component of our work was the national organization of program partners and regional alliances.  The interactions of this group were highly valued by the regional alliances because they 1) provided a sounding board and think tank to address challenges at the local level, 2) maintained enthusiasm and provided accountability, and 3) allowed local efforts to capitalize on national program partner resources.  The group was highly valued by the program partners because it 1) brought their work into customized use within local programs and 2) enabled networking with other national programs.  The leadership team as a whole learned a substantial amount about strategies for community engagement, pathway development, program management, and program design from one another. We also learned that the collective impact model was useful for supporting these interactions in a productive way and for monitoring the health of our alliance.

The project created a website (serc.carleton.edu/EarthConnections) that documents our shared vision, the EarthConnections pathway model, the tools developed to support regional alliance and pathway development and to monitor the health of alliances, and the work of the three regional alliances including their pathway map. Beyond EarthConnections, the the pathway maps inspired the development of career planning exercises in other programs that serve URM undergraduate students. 

Last Modified: 11/15/2019
Modified by: Cathryn A Manduca