Participant Essays

More Questions than Answers: Identifying Geoscience Career Opportunities
Cheryl Resnick, Illinois Central College
Illinois Central College is located along the Illinois River in Peoria, Illinois. We currently serve approximately 12,000 FTE students. Our three full-time faculty teach sections of introductory Earth Science, Physical Geology, and Meteorology. We also teach a two week field course each summer that takes students out west for hands-on learning. The faculty who teach physical geology require multiple field trips to local and regional locations, teaching students basic field observation techniques...

Utilizing field experiences to create student interest in the geosciences.
Kelly Bringhurst, Dixie State College of Utah
Dixie 
State
 College
 of
 Utah 
is 
located 
in
 Southern 
Utah 
at 
the 
border
 of 
the 
Colorado 
Plateau
 and
 the 
Basin
 and
 Range. We
 utilize 
this
 setting
 to
 give
 geologic 
field 
experiences
 to 
approximately 
600 
students
 a
 year.
 Field
 trips 
are 
required 
in 
all
 geology 
courses 
and 
range 
from 
local
 6‐hour
 trips 
to 
5‐day 
trips
 to
 the 
National
 Parks.

Interview with a scientist
Amber Kumpf, Muskegon Community College
Overarching goal of the activity: help students be more informed about (1) their possible career options and about (2) specific skills they can develop to best prepare themselves for the workforce.

Engaging Rural Alaskan Students in Geoscience
Todd Radenbaugh, University of Alaska Fairbanks
In rural Alaska, the teaching of university level geosciences at University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) has been limited to a few 100 and 200 level courses offered through the UAF's Collage of Rural and Community Development (CRCD). CRCD has 5 rural campuses across the state that traditionally has focused on English and math instruction, tribal management, and courses to meet community needs.

Grand Isle Project - Model for 2 YC Research
Sadredin Moosavi, RCTC
Over the past few years my research agenda has been challenged by the hurdles facing most faculty in non-tenure track appointments; high teaching loads involving mostly lower division non-major students, lack of access to research equipment, job instability and appointment in departments that devalue teaching and those who teach general education populations by favoring research-oriented upper division faculty with policies that restrict permission to submit grant proposals to tenure track faculty...

Pairing 2YCS with research-focused universities
John Taber, IRIS Consortium
Given the value that has been shown for early research experiences for undergraduates, including for students who have yet to decide on a major, IRIS would like to partner with other organizations to develop, or help build on a student research program that integrates research opportunities at two-year and four-year schools. We have experience running a national distributed REU program for upper-level students with math, physics and/or geoscience background, but need to learn more about the needs and interests of first and second year students, as our current program has evolved into one where most participants have completed their junior year...

Texas A&M Geosciences and the increasing role of transfer students
Eric Riggs, Humboldt State University
Texas A&M University at College Station is the flagship university for the Texas A&M System, and as such is a major destination for transfer students, both from inside and outside the A&M system. The College of Geosciences consists of four academic departments and many organized research centers spanning the core geoscience disciplines of Geology & Geophysics, Geography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences...

VoiceThread for On-line Courses
Bob Ford, Frederick Community College
I wish I could write a concise, but elaborate statement describing all the wonderful things we are doing to prepare our students to be successful in geoscience degree programs and careers, but I cannot. We are a small to moderate sized school. Most of the students taking our science courses are non-science majors satisfying general education requirements or students trying to get into one of our allied health programs...

Developing meaningful and manageable research opportunities for community college students: lessons learned from semester #1
Becca Walker, Mt. San Antonio College
Each semester, there are a handful of students in the science building every day working at the tables outside of the classrooms, dropping by office hours with hand samples, and asking questions after class related to, but beyond the scope of, the topic covered that day. They are the "repeat offenders" who have taken several courses in the department and are hungry for more. But when I say "more", I don't mean yet another rock identification lab or plate tectonics lecture...

Collaboration Between Wake Tech and NC State to Increase the Number and Diversity of Geoscience Students
Gretchen Miller, Wake Technical Community College
I have been successful in recruiting several students into geoscience majors in recent years simply through enthusiastic teaching and identifying students who are asking the right kinds of questions. I keep an email list of interested students, and forward any relevant information regarding educational opportunities...