| 英文摘要: | Front Range Community College (FRCC) and UNAVCO, a non-profit research facility that operates the NSF-supported Geodesy Advancing Geosciences and EarthScope (GAGE) Facility, are collaborating on a holistic project to engage and retain community college students throughtout the state of Colorado in geoscience education and career pathways. The American Geosciences Institute 2014 Workforce Report predicts a workforce shortage of ~135,000 geoscientists by 2022. Increasingly, students begin their undergraduate careers in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines at community colleges, making the transition between two-year and four-year undergraduate institutions a critical juncture for ensuring student retention and success. Providing students with authentic experiences in STEM through research experiences and internships, as well as helping students to understand the career opportunities available to them in the geosciences, to develop the academic and professional skills needed to succeed in those careers, and to identify the mentors and networks that can support them along the way, are proven best practices for retaining students in STEM pathways. Given the very diverse demographic make-up of students attending community colleges, successful transfer of these students into four-year degree programs helps to broaden participation of traditionally underrepresented students in STEM and the geosciences.
FRCC and UNAVCO are collaborating to implement a tiered, student-focused program that provides community college students in Colorado with experiential learning opportunities in the geosciences. The Geo-Launchpad program is creating an entry point into geo-focused careers for students through a structured experience, starting with introductory workshops and webinars to engage students, develop career awareness and initiate mentoring and networking. Motivated students move into a semester-long special topics course in geoscience designed to build student capacity, and reinvorce engagement. For a select group of students, the program culminates in an 8-week paid summer internship experience at UNAVCO, which provides continuity of the community college geoscience pathway with the industry and advanced education programs at Colorado's research institutions. Students work in teams on projects focused on solid earth, cryosphere, environmental science, hydrogeodesy, and ocean/atmosphere applications of global postitioning system (GPS) technologies. Each intern is supported by 3 mentors, one of which is located at their home institution. In addition to increasing geoscience content knowledge, the Geo-Launchpad program activities help students build basic skills in critical thinking, data analysis, communication, and organization. An annual mini-symposium at UNAVCO provides faculty and students from around the state of Colorado with information regarding the Geo-Launchpad programs, as well as professional development related to mentoring and advising. After the initial phases of implementating the program at FRCC, the project will recruit and make available online many of the resources to other community college students throughout the state. |