A Gateway Keck Project built on experiences with traditional Keck and REU internships
Abstract
Mentored summer research opportunities are considered key experiences for students that plan to continue in the field; many of these programs are geared toward students entering their senior year with the expectation they have already declared a geoscience major and completed substantial coursework. Here we present our experiences with the relatively new model of the five-wek Gateway Keck Project that admits students during their second semester of college for summer research prior to their sophomore year. We focus on our efforts to transform an 'advanced undergraduate' REU program collecting lake sediment cores in Glacier National Park into one suitable for students without a declared science major (or even geology class) or any experience/background in field or laboratory research. Our goal was to excite students about pursuing geoscience degrees and careers by exposing them to real research and teaching both "soft" and "hard" research skills. Our methodology included building in money for students to rent or buy gear they didn't own, slowing the pace of the project, deliberately walking through each step of preparation for the field, field work, and lab work with the students, and breaking up field work with observational hikes, ranger lectures, and public science communication. We work in high-traffic areas of a popular national park, and we engaged students in frequent communication with visitors. In addition, we engaged with the students informally throughout the project on the intersection of science and their lives and interests, and purposefully shared our own career trajectories and stumbling blocks along the way. This included conversations with other scientists at various stages of their careers during the 5-week project.
We benefited from our collective experience in several other Keck and REU projects in past years, as well as from the supportive GEO-REU community (including funding agencies) and Keck program directors. We depended on faculty at the Keck Consortium institutions to identify and encourage participation of students from diverse backgrounds, as well as the willingness of the consortium representatives to prioritize funding for the eight students. The inclusion of a "near-peer" mentor (a student entering her junior year with commensurate coursework) was a critical part of the program.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMED21C0910M
- Keywords:
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- 0810 Post-secondary education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0815 Informal education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0845 Instructional tools;
- EDUCATIONDE: 9820 Techniques applicable in three or more fields;
- GENERAL OR MISCELLANEOUS