The GeoEngage program provided opportunities for participants to:
- Learn how knowledge from introductory science courses is applied by geoscientists to help solve problems facing society by completing related hands-on activities, such as calculations to understand the stability of hillslopes, experiments to determine the chemical weathering that leads to sinkholes, and demonstrations that show heat transfer that melts ice.
- Discover career options in the geosciences in relation to the course that students are enrolled in. Student participants learned about academic preparation for specific career options, potential work tasks and employers, and typical salaries.
- Participate in an extracurricular hands-on geoscience project to help serve a community need (check out completed projects by student participants). Working with their peers, faculty, and working professionals, student participants investigated local geologic features and their importance to society and developed educational material about these features for the benefit of the general public. Student participants benefited by:
- Applying course knowledge
- Gaining work-related experience focused on a local geoscience issue
- Developing new skills, both academic (e.g., problem solving) and professional (e.g., working in teams)
- Interacting with working professionals
- Networking with students, faculty, and professionals
- Receiving a financial incentive for participation
- Be paired with a geoscience peer mentor to facilitate their development as a geoscientist and help build a sense of belonging to the local community of geoscientists.
Disclaimer
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number 2119446. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
