Geopath Grant

GP-IMPACT


Geopaths-Impact


Program Overview

The University of Hawai'i (UH) Geopaths-Impact (GP-IMPACT) GEO Alliance partners share the common motivation to build systemic effective strategies to recruit, retain, (transfer) and graduate a professionally prepared geoscience workforce in Hawai'i and in the US. The key objective of this GEO Alliance is create a new, sustainable, articulated and purposeful multimodal pathway for undergraduate students with the goal of Increasing the number and diversity of undergraduate students who enroll, persist in, and complete a degree program in the Geology, Environmental/Earth, and Ocean (GEO) sciences at the University of Hawai'i. Students who navigate and persist in the GEO STEM Pathway will acquire the requisite skills and training needed to pursue graduate education or move into the STEM workforce. The GEO STEM Pathway project intends double the number of transfer students into geosciences, in three years, by building sustained, fully-articulated geoscience pathways through institutional collaborations between the UH two-year colleges and the flagship RI UH campus. The transition from the two-year to the four-year geoscience program is the critical juncture this project will investigate. The campus partners are University of Hawai'i Manoa (MAN) School of Ocean and Earth Science & Technology (SOEST), Kapi'olani Community College (KAP), Leeward Community College (LEE), and the UH System Office of STEM Education (OSE). This initiative will be directed by the System OSE to insure institutionalization, articulation, and sustainability of the pathway, to leverage other STEM programs at UH and to strengthen collaboration and communication between UH campuses to have the maximum GP-IMPACT.


Intellectual Merit

Academic and career pathway models for student engagement and persistence in higher education have shown to be highly effective treatments for STEM student training and in support of underrepresented groups in STEM education. At UH, this STEM pathways development process has been highly effective in increasing the numbers of student (including native Hawaiians (NH)) from 11th and 12th grade to undergraduate matriculation in the UH College of Engineering and other STEM programs at UH. Higher education in Hawai'i is spread over seven major islands, some of which do not offer STEM baccalaureate degrees. Thus community colleges have become a primary entrance point for students seeking a four-year degree. It is vital that UH develop sustainable, articulated STEM pathways for students who intend to graduate with a four-year degree. Hawaii provides a rich and unique environment for studying geology, environmental/earth, and ocean (GEO) Sciences. Providing undergraduate research experiences, bridging and mentoring programs and other high impact learning practices in support of a well developed GEO STEM Pathway will support the US and local need for a strong Geoscience workforce. The State of Hawai'i is one of the most remote locations on the surface of the earth. This isolation has afforded the Hawaiian islands unique opportunities to develop sustainable communities that are rich in culture and diverse in environment.


Broader Impact

This GEO STEM Pathways initiative will have broad impact in producing large numbers of diverse, highly skilled and uniquely trained scientists. This project will leverage numerous other projects (NSF LSAMP, TCUP, EPSCOR) at UH that are focused on increasing the number of NH students who matriculate and enter the STEM fields. This coupled with that fact that multiple UH campuses have been recently designated as the is the research powerhouse of the University, generating fully one-third of the total extramural funding at UHM. most diverse colleges in the country, make for a high probability of strengthening and diversifying the Geoscience workforce in Hawai'i and in the US.


Strategies

To accomplish this goal the UH GEO collaboration will

1. GEO Pathway Development:
Develop engaging and sustained academic and career pathways in Geosciences from K-12 to higher education.

2. Capacity Building:
Build capacity for career relevant geoscience programs in Hawai’i.

3. Broadening Participation:
Broaden participation in GEO Sciences by leveraging high impact practices for engagement of underrepresented groups, particularly native Hawaiians.

4. High Impact Practices:
Provide opportunities for UH GEO students, faculty, and staff to engage in effective strategies that ensure learning, support teaching and strengthen undergraduate research experiences.


Outcomes

Natural Hazards: OEST 101

The Natural Hazards course (OEST 101) has been developed and implemented at the two biggest Community Colleges of the University of Hawai’i system since Spring 2021: Kapi’olani and Leeward Community College. It has shown to be the catalyzer for creating interest in geosciences topics and for the implementation of additional URE research projects. The purpose of this new course was to provide students with an early exposure to geosciences concepts specifically related to natural hazards and the impact on human civilization due to events in the lithosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere.

This course is transdisciplinary in nature and uses real data to teach foundational principles in geological (earthquakes), oceanographic (tsunamis), and atmospheric science (hurricanes) and more importantly the close connections between these science disciplines. Students are introduced to finding, interpreting, and using geosciences data, the exploration of the causes and effects on society of various topics in natural hazards of specific interest to Hawaii such as Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Hurricanes, Volcanic eruptions, sea level rise, ocean acidification or eutrophication.

At the end of this course, students are able to explain the relevance of oceanography, geology, and geophysics to human needs, and be able to discuss issues related to geology and its impact on society and planet Earth; they have had basic exposure to the scientific method allowing them to define, critically analyze, and solve problems in ocean and earth sciences; reconstruct, clearly and ethically, oceanographic and geological knowledge in both oral presentations and written reports; describe interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean, and how those interactions influence physical and chemical ocean processes; and evaluate, interpret, and summarize the basic principles of oceanography, geology, and geophysics, including the fundamental tenets of the sub-disciplines, and their context in relationship to other core sciences, to explain complex phenomena in oceanography, geology, and geophysics.

Climate Science: OEST 201

In order to continue to best prepare students for geosciences, and complete the initial exposure to geosciences topics through OEST 101, an additional OEST 201 level course has been implemented at Kapi’olani Community College. Such a course would enhance the initial engagement of students in OEST 101 and provide them with more robust mathematics, and an integrated lecture/lab format that would infuse the hands-on experience projects conducted in the laboratory with the theoretical framework provided during class time. It is an introductory climate science course that investigates the physical laws governing the Earth’s climate and their interactions with chemical and biological processes on land and in the atmosphere, oceans, and cryosphere. Past, present, and potential future climate changes due to natural and human causes are assessed using a variety of observations, models, and computer programming. This course aims specifically at recruiting and retaining local, Native Hawaiian and other UGR students by making topics pertinent to the Hawaiian Islands in order to help prepare the future geoscience workforce in the State of Hawai’i. This course could be built around specific issues or projects in geosciences that are relevant to the students in the Hawaiian Islands. This would attract geosciences students who are typically underrepresented in these fields, and potentially help prepare the future geosciences literate workforce of the State of Hawai’i.


Student Engagement

To this date, 23 students were engaged in Peer mentoring, and 61 students in Undergraduate Research Experience (URE) projects in geosciences. Forty-eight of them presented their research at the Student Undergraduate Research Fair (SURF) at Kapiolani Community College in year 2021 ad 2022. Three Leeward students conducted a research internship with the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) and the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Fall 2021. Ten students conducted research projects; three of them presented their outcomes at the Hawai‘i Ecosystems meeting in Summer 2021. In Spring 2022, 10 students were engaged in URE and assisted in the effort to the Red Hill Fuel Leak response, including collecting water samples from tap water supplied by the Board of Water Supply. In addition,  four
students co-presented with Dr. Viviani (Leeward geoscience faculty lead) at the Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM) in Spring 2022 a poster presentation entitled “Coastal
Plankton of Pu‘uloa (Pearl Harbor)”, a research co-funded by another geopath grant (NSF#2022937).