Challenges and Opportunities in Broadening Participation in Geosciences part of Geoscience in Two-year Colleges:Essays
Manchester Community College is located just to the east of Connecticut's capitol city, Hartford. Our college's service area includes both urban and rural communities. We serve students who are from many different cultural backgrounds and who speak over fifty different languages. To promote student participation in geosciences and environmental sciences, we use several difference tools at the college.

Addressing 2YC Challenges at Portland Community College part of Geoscience in Two-year Colleges:Essays
Challenge #1 – Networking among community college geoscience educators Challenge #2 – Supporting new and part-time faculty Challenge #3 – Addressing the needs of the "average" student now taking our courses Challenge #4 – Encouraging students interested in careers in the geosciences

Strategies for a Strong Geoscience Program at Red Rocks Community College part of Geoscience in Two-year Colleges:Essays
When considering the strategies our program has used to meet some of the challenges associated with teaching at a two-year college, our effective use of non-traditional courses and transfer agreements immediately came to mind. I have only been teaching at the community college level for a couple of years, so I was not the first to initiate these tactics here at Red Rocks Community College, but I have found them to be very effective and think they're practices worth continuing and sharing with others who work in a similar setting.

Comprehensive Earthquake Monitoring Assignment to Address Earth Science Literacy part of Geoscience in Two-year Colleges:Essays
Most students enrolled in my geology courses may never take a science class ever again, yet I find it likely that the will discuss a scientific topic at some point in their life. Therefore, I feel very strongly that students gain experience communicating moderately technical information to a variety of audiences. One challenge with my courses is that it is not until the latter third of the semester that we focus on more charismatic aspects of geological carnage and processes more obviously related to everyday life beyond igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. In response to maintaining students' interest and understanding of fundamental geologic principles and their broader implications to Earth processes, I've created an earthquake monitoring project that lasts for several weeks and culminates with a final paper. By the time the assignment is delivered, students have learned about minerals, rock forming processes (including the three major rock types) and Plate Tectonics, and they are starting to delve into learning about earthquakes. This project requires students' interpretations to be built upon the information covered earlier in the semester, to compile information regularly from the United States Geological Survey, and to practice communicating technical information to a range of audiences.

Geoscience at Hillsborough Community College part of Geoscience in Two-year Colleges:Essays
Hillsborough Community College, like many large metropolitan community colleges in close proximity to major universities, has a high ratio of Associate in Arts (A.A.) to Associate in Science (A.S.) degree seekers. At the particular campus where I teach, that ratio approaches 9:1. Not surprisingly, the majority of students enrolled in the geosciences courses that we offer1 are seeking to fulfill general education requirements for a generic liberal arts A.A. or for a non-science university parallel A.A., rather than taking those courses for a terminal geosciences related degree or a university parallel degree in a geoscience major. Our college does have an Environmental Science Technology A.S. degree; however, most of the geoscience related courses required for that program are restricted to students in the program, and thus constitute only a very small part of our total enrollment.

Growing Your Program Out in the Field part of Geoscience in Two-year Colleges:Essays
Its hard to believe that when I arrived at Central Wyoming College ten years ago that geology had not been taught here for almost twenty years, and then only occasionally. Here we sit in the place that many geology camps bring their students to learn their field skills. There were two courses on the books: Physical and Historical. The year prior, the University of Wyoming (our only public 4-year institution) removed the prerequisite for Historical and made them both entry-level courses. While we don't have to follow everything that UW does, it makes transfer easier for our students to transfer if we do follow much of it. As at most institutions, entry-level geoscience courses serve a mixed population of potential majors to general studies, and it is always challenging to make the information relevant to all. (But that is the topic of a different essay.)

The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts part of Geoscience in Two-year Colleges:Essays
When I started teaching at Blinn College in the summer of 1996, I was the second of two part-time Geology instructors. Our classroom/lab was located in a converted strip mall, we had an institutional collection of about two dozen rocks stored in baby-wipe tubs, and we approached each new semester with anxiety, hoping that our classes would make.

COSEE - Pacific Partnerships part of Geoscience in Two-year Colleges:Essays
I am the director of one of the National Science Foundation funded Centers for Ocean Science Education Excellence (COSEE) www.cossee.org. One of the goals of my center, COSEE – Pacific Partnerships, is to increase the opportunities for community college faculty and students to learn about the ocean.

Increasing Participation in the Geosciences at El Paso Community College part of Geoscience in Two-year Colleges:Essays
Community Colleges currently serve 44% of all undergraduate students and 45% of all of all first time freshmen in the US1. The combined low cost and flexibility of community colleges has also meant that they accommodate a large percentage of minorities entering higher education. Hispanics now constitute 15% of the general population and 19% of college population in the US1. This increase has led to more Institutions being designated HSI (Hispanic Serving Institutions) by the federal government, where at least 25 percent of the full-time-equivalent students are Latino.

Faculty-Librarian Collaborations part of Geoscience in Two-year Colleges:Essays
What's a librarian doing at a 2yc Geoscience Workshop? Unlike you, I don't grade hundreds of pages every semester; don't hustle to prep for six or more lectures a week, and don't navigate daily challenges from administration and students. I am a geoscience educator in the broadest sense of the term. You might also call me an 'embedded librarian' in the science departments of a 4yc. There I collaborate with faculty, students, and other librarians to support their teaching and learning. Years ago that job was very collection-oriented. Now we focus on instruction and resources. Collaboration is the keyword. Just this week, the American College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Research Planning and Review Committee listed collaboration as one of the Top Ten trends in academic libraries. (June 2010 College & Research Libraries News vol. 71no. 6286)