« San Bernardino Alliance

San Bernardino Pathway Elements

Activity 1: Round Table Event

December 15, 2016

Number of Participants: 35

On December 15, 2016 we held a Round Table event. 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 focus of discussion during the first session was on 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. During the second set of table discussions, participants were grouped into five tables with different topical themes, and a different set of questions was discussed at each table. The five table themes were related 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. The final large group session included reports from the tables as well as general discussion of next steps.

Directions that emerged from or were supported by the Round Table event include (1) a focus on enhancing teaching in introductory geoscience courses, (2) hosting an Earth Science open house or career night (or career day), and (3) fostering joint activities between geology student clubs at high schools, community colleges and universities.

Activity 2: Joint field trip

March 25, 2017

Number of Participants: 35

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.
  

Activity 3: NAGT-InTeGrate teaching workshop

September 7-8, 2017

Number of Participants: 20

On September 7-8, 2017 the San Bernardino Alliance hosted an InTeGrate/NAGT teaching workshop. The 20 participants included seven CSUSB geology faculty members (3 tenured/tenure-track and 4 lecturers), one geology faculty member from University of California, Riverside, two community college geology faculty and two high school science teachers. The remaining participants were CSUSB faculty from other departments.

The participants in the workshop were actively engaged throughout the 1.5-day workshop, and each CSUSB participant is implementing at least one new pedagogy or InTeGrate lesson or module from the workshop. Participants are meeting for three brown-bag lunches after the workshop (Nov. 6, Nov. 27 and January 31) to present and discuss their implementation projects. Once the implementation pilots and reporting are completed, participants from CSUSB will be paid a stipend from CSUSB's quarter-to-semester curriculum development budget.

Activity 4: High school honors geology course

2017-18 and 2018-19

Number of Participants: 15, 50

Starting during the 2017-18 academic year, Ms. Bernadette Vargas began offering an honors Geology course at Etiwanda High School, with intellectual support from CSUSB. This course was being developed by Ms. Vargas, following the model of the Geol 101 course offered at CSUSB and it bears college credit for that course.

Collaboration with the CSUSB geosciences department is in place and the course has the full support of the Principal at school level and the Superintendent of Instruction at the district level. Ms. Vargas also attended the NAGT-InTeGrate teaching workshop in September 2017.

Activity 5: Geology field research

March 16 - April 8, 2018

Number of Participants: 15 (plus visitors to the site)

In March 2018 Sally McGill worked with her M.S. student, Kyle Pena, at a paleoseismic trench across the Garlock fault for three weeks as part of an NSF-funded (Tectonics) research project. Nine other CSUSB students were hired on the grant to assist with the field work, including three other M.S. students and six undergraduate geology majors. A large majority of the students working at the trench were from under-represented ethnic groups. All 10 of the students worked at the trench during the week of our spring break, and some also assisted for parts of the weeks prior to and after spring break. It appeared to me that a strong sense of camaraderie built up among the participating students with a number of tangible benefits related to Earth Connections goals:

1. 

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   Two of the six CSUSB undergraduate students who participated in the field project transferred to CSUSB from community college in Fall 2017, and two of the four CSUSB M.S. students who participated began their M.S. programs in Fall 2017. This activity helped to support these new students in their on-going process of integration into the department.
2. All of the students interacted with a professor and two Ph.D. students from University of Southern California who were also collaborating on the trench project, and also with a professor from University of Sheffield, England. The four CSUSB M.S. students, in particular, demonstrated interest in talking to the two USC Ph.D. students about what Ph.D. programs are like.
3. One of the undergraduate students (from an under-represented group) will be doing his senior research project with me, using data collected from the trench and vicinity.
4. The two CSUSB students (both M.S.) who were able to be present on the day that we invited colleagues to visit the trench got to witness scientific discussion of evidence for prehistoric earthquakes and to observe the difference in focus between academic visitors and visitors who are professional geologists. (The former were interested in dating prehistoric earthquakes to better understand the physics of the earthquake cycle, and the latter were interested in defining the characteristics of the fault zone that would be important to safely developing the property, such as width of the fault zone and amount of slip per earthquake ).
5. Of the 10 participating CSUSB students at least six are Hispanic (including all four of the MS students) and one is African American.