During remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed and implemented a place-based, 5E mini-unit for New York City high school and community college Earth science students, most of whom identify as belonging to non-dominant groups. As well as supporting standard science skills such as graphing and interpreting data, we leveraged…

This study investigated the impact of training in self-regulated learning on community college, geoscience students' achievement, metacognition, time management, and science motivation scales. The study also investigated the impact of SRL training on these outcomes as a function of gender and ethnicity. During the Fall of 2022, 70 community…

This chapter addresses the engagement of geoscience societies with community college faculty, traces the emergence of the Geo2YC Division as a model for others, and provides examples that focus on ways to build a professional community.

The Opportunities for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences (OEDG) program, operational between the years 2001 and 2013, was a signature effort by the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Geosciences (NSF/GEO) to invest in broadening participation of historically underrepresented populations in geoscience education programs and careers.…

Community colleges are a major entry point for many students to post-secondary education, particularly for minority, first-generation, low-income, and older students. A range of factors including transfer-readiness, curricular alignment, financial barriers, and transfer guidance, influence successful transfer between two-year colleges (2YCs) and…

In this article, we describe two large-scale, professional development programs that are grounded in communities of practice in the geosciences. Each program uniquely fostered leadership skills among the participants, and many community college instructors emerged as leaders on their campuses and beyond.

Objective/Research Question: This paper reports on data collected in a multi-year National Science Foundation grant project involving a professional development (PD) model built to support community college faculty as change agents (CAs). The research question was: How do disciplinary communities of practice (CoP) emerge among community college…

Providing pathways that support geoscience transfer students from two-year colleges (2YC) to four-year colleges and universities (4YCU) addresses enrollment challenges, diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, and helps build the 21st-century geoscience workforce. Building bridges between 2YC-4YCU programs can happen in various ways, all of which…

As one of the STEM disciplines with the lowest percentages of minoritized students and professionals, faculty and administrators in the geosciences have an opportunity to address racism within the context of their classrooms and campuses. In response, a group of community college geoscience faculty from disparate institutions across the U.S. came…

Community colleges enroll almost half of U.S. undergraduates and were predicted to produce 12% of the workforce for STEM professions in 2018. Half of these students are the first in their families to attend college and therefore are more likely unfamiliar with the steps required to transfer to four-year universities or internship programs.…

The report provides a portrait of science and engineering (S&E) higher education in the United States, including trends over time and comparisons with other nations. S&E fields, as defined in this report, include astronomy, chemistry, physics, atmospheric sciences, earth sciences, ocean sciences, mathematics and statistics, computer…

What is the extent to which college and university geoscience faculty report using education practices that contribute to more inclusive learning environments and engage a diverse population of students? In the 2016 National Geoscience Faculty Survey, faculty answered questions about their practices in a specific introductory or major course they…

Research has shown that modern courses and programs designed to foster critical thinking vary in both content and delivery, in turn leading to differences in their effectiveness. Few studies have investigated critical thinking among nontraditional students at community colleges taking STEM courses, especially within the geosciences. Furthermore,…

The Geo-Launchpad Program is a pre-Research Experience for Undergraduates (pre-REU) providing a summer internship and professional development for two-year college (2YC) students from Colorado. The program goal was to build students' interest and capacity to engage in geoscience-focused STEM career pathways. The pre-REU helped students develop…

The geosciences continue to lag behind the other sciences in both diversity and degree completion rates of students transferring from two-year colleges (2YCs). Critical to strengthening the transfer student pipeline is the need to identify who takes introductory geosciences courses at the 2YC level and what factors contribute to increased 2YC…