IRIS Field Experiences for Undergraduates Program (FieldXP): Lessons Learned from a Three-Year Pilot Study
Abstract
Fieldwork is common to geoscience research, and while frequently laborious, students commonly perceive fieldwork as an "adventure" and seek out opportunities to participate. Recruitment for the field typically takes place through social and professional connections between colleagues, which makes it nearly impossible for students outside the geosciences to experience the excitement of fieldwork that could lead to a geoscience career path. To address this concern, the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) placed fourteen undergraduate students in the field with American and Canadian project investigators (PIs) in academic and government sectors over the course of three consecutive summers from 2016-2018. The majority ( 80%) of all student participants came from the University of Texas at El Paso's Academic Year Pathways Research Experience Program (AY-PREP) funded by the National Science Foundation. The goal of AY-PREP was to motivate students to continue towards advanced degrees and/or career paths in the geosciences, through exposure to a variety of geoscience research and field experiences. By design, students were individually paired with a mentor, who helped with logistics, research objectives, and the collection of field data and analysis. Field settings varied from camping in Alaska to laboratory work on another university campus to kayaking on Lake Erie. After each summer, an external evaluator conducted summative interviews with each of the students and mentors. She found that PIs hosted students because they had benefitted from internships and/or training in the past, they needed help in the field, and these students had funding to participate. Many students and mentors responded that they wish they had more help in the logistics and how best to prepare and train for the field.
To help address this need, IRIS has begun a partnership with the American Geophysical Union's Mentoring365 program to construct a twelve-week mentor-mentee program to help students engage with their mentors earlier, and help mentors have clear guidelines about how to prepare students for the field. This presentation will focus on information gathered from three years of evaluations and our development of the Mentoring365 field-track, in hopes that it helps others best prepare for future field exercises.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMED12A..09S
- Keywords:
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- 0810 Post-secondary education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0850 Geoscience education research;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0855 Diversity;
- EDUCATIONDE: 6630 Workforce;
- PUBLIC ISSUES