Attract and Support Diverse Learners
This page was developed as a synthesis of lessons learned by participants in InTeGrate program models and is part of an extended set of InTeGrate resources on increasing the diversity of students learning about the Earth.
Engaging student interest is crucial to learning. Showing how geoscience and sustainability are relevant to students' lives and things they care about are key ways of doing that. Looking at important local issues, examining how socioeconomic differences affect environmental challenges and outcomes, and ensuring that faculty make use of good active learning teaching methods can go a long way to hooking student interest.
There are many pathways for students to begin studying the Earth. Collaborating across the full range of institutions --- K12 schools, two-year colleges, and four-year colleges and universities --- is a critical piece to ensure that students find their way into the discipline as well as as sense of themselves as belonging in the community.
Student learning benefits from connections to the community in which they live. Activities like Service Learning, field trips, and connections with local businesses and agencies who may hire them one day are important parts of generating and strengthening those connections.
