Initial Publication Date: May 12, 2017

Checkpoint 3 Reporting: San Bernardino

How have you made progress on your pathway?

The San Bernardino Alliance hosted a round-table event on December 15, 2016 from 4:00 - 6:30 pm at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB). Thirty-five people participated, including five tenured and three part-time CSUSB geology faculty, two CSUSB faculty from other departments, one community college geology faculty member, two high school Earth Science teachers, seven CSUSB administrators and staff, one high school administrator, one CSUSB undergraduate geology major, three CSUSB graduate students in Earth and Environmental Sciences, four CSUSB geology alumni who are working as geologists in the local community, two other professional geologists from the local community, and representatives of the Southern California Earthquake Center, the U.S. Geological Survey, the San Bernardino County Office of Emergency Services and the EarthConnections national alliance. The group discussed the nature of existing pathways for students into Earth Science careers, including what is working and where are the barriers that hinder students from various backgrounds from continuing. Five specific topics were also discussed relating to strengthening EarthScience Pathways by (1) improving the quality of introductory geoscience courses, (2) engaging students with Earth Science issues that affect their local community, (3) supporting students through the transitions between high school, community college and university, (4) fostering student success within individual educational institutions, and (5) supporting students through the transition from school to career.

In January 2017, the core working group of the San Bernardino Alliance met to debrief after the round table event and to plan future directions. It was decided that the next step would a joint field trip to the San Andreas fault at CSUSB for students from Chaffey College and from the Geology club and Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) club at Etiwanda High school. Sally McGill, Bernadette Vargas, Dan Keck and Anna Foutz had two additional meetings to plan the joint field trip, which was held on Saturday, March 25. About 30 students attended the event which included a hike to the San Andreas fault, a demonstration of the use of a drone to collect aerial imagery of the fault (and a group photo), two guest speakers on careers in geology over the brown bag lunch (one from a CSUSB graduate student, Bryan Castillo, and one from CSUSB geolgy alumnus Jeff Fitzsimmons), a tour of seismically retrofitted buildings on the CSUSB campus, and an assignment for students to interview their family and friends about their perceptions of the most important geoscience issues facing our local communities. So far we have a report back from the students from Chaffey College, who report that the top five issues among those whom they interviewed are:
- Causes of earthquakes, especially earthquakes in Southern California due to the San Andreas.
- How groundwater is stored, acquired and utilized—most importantly the rate of use versus the rate of natural replenishment.
- Precious minerals in the local area: how they got here and methods to find them.
- The difference between weather and climate, and why Earth's climate changes.
- The origin of fossil fuels and how we find them.

Our next event in the planning stages is a workshop on teaching introductory courses in the geosciences to be held this summer, for full time and part-time faculty at CSUSB, local community colleges and high schools that offer geology or Earth Science courses.

Describe why the steps you took were important in meeting your pathway goals

1) Our round table event included a large number of administrators from CSUSB as well as from Etiwanda High School, because it was thought that it was important to get buy-in from the administration of the educational institutions involved, in order to develop a basis for sustainability.

2) Our first event after the round table was a joint field trip for students from Chaffey College and Etiwanda High School to CSUSB because we want to strengthen the connections between high schools, community colleges and universities in the San Bernardino area. Our hypothesis is that students who meet other students who are farther along on the geoscience pathway and faculty from institutions that might represent the next step on the pathway for them, will receive encouragement and assistance for continuing their development toward a career in geosciences.

3) Our rationale for offering a summer workshop on teaching introductory science courses is that most introductory geology courses at CSUSB are now taught by part-time lecturers, many of whom have not had opportunities to take part in professional development activities related to uses of active learning in large classes. We seek to provide such opportunities so as to improve the level of active engagement in learning among students in introductory geosciences courses at CSUSB and other educational institutions in the San Bernardino area.

Pathway Development

Embedding in the local community

Our alliance includes actively participating representatives from three educational institutions in the San Bernardino area (CSUSB, Chaffey College and Etiwanda High School). The Southern California Earthquake Center is also involved as a resource for our alliance. We would like to open up our network to other educational institutions so that teachers at other high schools may be mentored in how to develop a geology club, and may be connected to opportunities for joint field trips with other community colleges and universities in the region. One goal is for our alliance to foster connections between geoscience students and faculty at educational institutions in the San Bernardino area, so that other schools can spontaneously network to plan joint activities that will help students to envision the next step for them on the pathway to a geoscience career.

So far our connections with the local community other than through educational institutions are weak. We are aware of our need to grow in this area, which may require the attention of additional personnel to this task.

Process to get community input

1) We invited representatives of core educational institutions and local professional geologists from industry and government to our round table.

2) We assigned students at our March 25 field trip to interview their family and friends about geoscience issues that are perceived to be important to their local communities.

Use geoscience to address a local need or problem

The top five local needs related to geoscience issues that were identified by students from Chaffey College are:
1) Causes of earthquakes, especially earthquakes in Southern California due to the San Andreas.
2) How groundwater is stored, acquired and utilized—most importantly the rate of use versus the rate of natural replenishment.
3) Precious minerals in the local area: how they got here and methods to find them.
4) The difference between weather and climate, and why Earth's climate changes.
5) The origin of fossil fuels and how we find them.

So far most of our attention has focused on the issue of earthquakes, including our field trip to the San Andreas fault and tour of seismically retrofitted buildings at CSUSB. Our partner, the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) plays a lead role in addressing the issue of earthquake resiliency in Southern California. Students in our Alliance will have opportunities to interact with undergraduate student summer interns at SCEC, and may eventually become SCEC interns themselves, potentially advancing to a career in earthquake science. On a shorter time scale, high school and college students could learn about earthquake hazards and then lobby the City of San Bernardino to enact more proactive measures to ensure the timely retrofit or removal of unreinforced masonry buildings from the city.

Learning opportunities diagram

Mentoring and signposting to support students

We are hoping that informal connections will develop through our joint field trips, but we haven't talked yet about more formal efforts in this regard.




Checkpoint 3 Reporting: San Bernardino -- Discussion  

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