Attracting Hispanic Students to the Geosciences through the Development of Introductory Level Geology of Mexico and Mexico Field Trip Courses and Collaboration with Minority-Serving Groups on Campus

At CSU Sacramento we have developed two new introductory-level geology courses; Geology of Mexico and Mexico Field Trip; with the primary goals of (i) attracting more Hispanic students to introductory-level Geoscience courses and (ii) encouraging them to consider a STEM career by providing interesting and positive experiences in those courses. We work closely with Latino-serving groups on campus to promote the courses. We collected data on student backgrounds, attitudes to science and Geoscience knowledge at the beginning and end of each semester over three semesters in the Geology of Mexico course and our traditional Physical Geology course. Hispanic enrollment in the Geology of Mexico course is very high (93%) compared to the Physical Geology course (19%). We find that the students in Geology of Mexico come from families with a significantly lower degree of education (62% have a male parent with only elementary school education compared to 5% of all students in Physical Geology and 20% of Hispanic students in Physical Geology). This is most likely the result of one particular organization, the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP), being the major source of students for Geology of Mexico. Our data show that Geology of Mexico students are more successful than Hispanic students enrolled in Physical Geology with a higher proportion of students scoring a B or higher. We believe the higher success rate of Hispanic students in Geology of Mexico is due to a combination of two factors. Firstly, the students' engagement with the material is higher when using a place-based approach. Secondly, we find that students are more willing to participate in discussion and laboratory activities in Geology of Mexico, especially those for whom English is a second language. To date, one student from Geology of Mexico has declared a Geology minor and one is considering a Geology major.