GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION IN A STEM ENVIRONMENT: CHALLENGES TO PROVIDING QUALITY GEOSCIENCE RESEARCH EXPERIENCES FOR UNDERGRADUATES

The past few years have seen increased societal interest and funding to improve general competence in the STEM fields. The renewed focus on STEM should be an opportunity to address the relative paucity of geoscience offerings relative to Physics, Chemistry and Biology in the preparation of pre-service teachers and general education undergraduates in smaller academic institutions. The University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth created its STEM Department in 2009 in an environment in which the standard science departments were minimally involved in teacher preparation and where the geosciences were relegated to a few courses taught by faculty members in Physics. Geoscience research at the graduate level in the School of Marine Sciences conducted at a separate campus was largely inaccessible to the undergraduate population. This presentation discusses the barriers and successes encountered as a lone geoscientist in a STEM Department.

Despite strong student interest and a stated university goal of expanding environmental science options, bureaucratic and political hurdles regarding the nature of STEM presented significant barriers to developing geoscience course offerings within the STEM Department and School of Education, Public Policy and Civic Engagement. Fortunately, faculty connections to a pre-existing beach erosion project on the Gulf Coast in the heart of the BP oil spill impact zone provided an opening to building undergraduate geoscience research experiences outside the department. Partnerships with student organizations such as the Dartmouth Outdoor Club and faculty in the university’s sustainability program affords students the opportunity to engage in geoscience education and research in support of STEM goals despite lack of support from the STEM department. Such creative structures to meet student needs appear to remain necessary in provincial academia despite the new national focus on STEM and undergraduate research.