Connecting Teachers at HBCU with Geosciences knowledge, content and skills

Abstract:

The Geosciences represent the STEM area with the least Black representation. Despite some growth over the past few years, less than 1% of undergraduate geoscience degrees are conferred nationally to African Americans. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) are uniquely positioned to broaden participation of Black students who go on to pursue degrees and careers in science, engineering, technology and math (STEM) fields. In particular, HBCUs provide opportunities to introduce Geosciences to students from underrepresented and underserved communities by putting science in the hands of the teachers. However, many STEM departments at HBCUs tend to relate more to environmental sciences broadly, rather than the more narrow Geoscience or Earth science majors. Moreover, there may be no connections between education programs and geosciences. The goals of this project are 1) to map STEM offerings, related to Geosciences, at every HBCU, and 2) to map the educational offerings at HBCUs where geosciences is also offered. The project will develop layers of data depicting the intersections between pre-service teachers and earth sciences, indicating the offerings at each institution.