We present two successful models for discipline-based cultural change aimed at increasing the diversity and number of students retained in undergraduate physical science programs. Coupling place- and project-based learning with an environmental justice curriculum was used to spark student interest in societally-beneficial careers. We focus on cultural change benefiting lower division geoscience students in two separate programs, at Clovis Community College (CCC) in Fresno, CA, and Cal Poly Humboldt.

Geology and Environmental Science faculty at CCC and partner institution Fresno State provided leadership for the four-year Building Opportunities through Networks of Discovery in the Geosciences (GEOBOND) project. We analyze the effectiveness of cultural change using a discipline-based education research (DBER) framework with four components: structures and formal roles, language and symbols, people, and power and decision-making. We focus on differences in the power and decision-making experience of faculty at CCC and Fresno State. In particular, structural barriers at CCC, e.g., faculty not having access to the list of Geology majors, and being unable to hire students as research assistants or embedded tutors, were not encountered at Fresno State. Having GEOBOND faculty at a four-year institution validate potential solutions helped to justify the changes made in the community college setting.

We use the same DBER framework to explain the effectiveness of a multi-disciplinary approach to cultural change in Cal Poly Humboldt's Place Based Learning Community (PBLC) Stars to Rocks (for first year geology, chemistry, and physics majors). Grouping different physical sciences together allows for shared language while giving students opportunities for belonging within a larger group of peers and faculty. Faculty from the three departments have agency over discipline-specific changes, and are embedded within a group of lead faculty across all STEM disciplines who oversee the structural aspects of PBLC implementation.