Enhancing Communications and Building Partnerships Between University Geoscience Faculty and K-12 Students and Teachers.

We report the characteristics and lessons learned from an NSF GEOPATHS project that included a variety of outreach components that sought to connect high school students and teachers with faculty and their research in a research-intensive geoscience department. Our project seeks to engage high school students in authentic, career-relevant experiences. We provide multiple opportunities for high school students to discover the geosciences so that they have a clear vision of what a geoscientist does and how this work can impact our local community, the nation, and the world.

The project has three principal components: i) Summer Camp - A five-day free summer day camp designed for early high school students to focus on the roles of geoscience in society. The summer camp program involves students in some basic research during which they learn about the geosciences, work with geoscientists, and hear from working geoscientists about the nature of their jobs. ii) An open house visitation program where high school students can visit and interact with research faculty in geology, marine science, and meteorology so that the students can realize the significant role that the geosciences play in identifying and mitigating the grand challenges that society will face during their lifetimes. iii) A two-week Colorado River GeoJourney bridge course offered prior to Fall semester to matriculating first-year university students. This 3-credit course focuses on interactions between geoscience and society along one of the continent's most iconic rivers. We recruited students from university programs containing students with a STEM focus, but who may be unaware of the merits and opportunities of a career in the geosciences.

The project seeks to provide a mechanism for reaching a cohort of students who are currently unengaged with the geosciences in high school and do not consider the geosciences to represent a realistic career path. Further, this project provides opportunities for geoscience faculty at NCSU to build robust partnerships with colleagues within university programs serving incoming students and with earth and environmental science teachers in the local public school system.