Geoscience Alliance: A Visualization of the Decadal Growth of a Native American Mentoring Organization

The Geoscience Alliance (GA) is a national alliance of individuals committed to broadening participation of Native Americans in the geosciences. Its members are faculty and staff from tribal colleges, universities, and research centers; native elders and community members; industry and corporate representatives; students (K12, undergraduate, and graduate); formal and informal educators; and other interested individuals. The goals of the Geoscience Alliance are to 1) create new collaborations in support of geoscience education for Native American students, 2) establish a new research agenda aimed at closing gaps in our knowledge on barriers and best practices related to Native American participation in the geosciences, 3) increase participation by Native Americans in setting the national research agenda on issues in the geosciences, and particularly those that impact Native lands, 4) provide a forum to communicate educational opportunities for Native American students in the geosciences, and 5) to understand and respect indigenous traditional knowledge.

After our initial planning meeting in 2009, we have held four national conferences over the last decade. We will present results of a temporal analysis of our membership, presented in geospatially located format. Data were collected from conference registration and other sources, deidentified, and mapped using freely available Microsoft Power Map for Excel. The results show change in member geographical location and academic degree attainment over time, as well as the growth of the organization.