ENGAGING TOMORROW'S LEADERS TODAY: GEOSCIENCE OUTREACH IN A DIVERSE COMMUNITY

While the Latino population is the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, this group is also the most poorly educated. National high school graduation rates are the lowest for Latinos and this trend only intensifies throughout higher education. Furthermore, Latinos are severely under-represented in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. Introducing young Latinos into the STEM educational pipeline is necessary for maintaining an active and innovative scientific community in the United States.

UC Riverside is a federally-designated Hispanic Serving Research Institute and has a proven record of successfully graduating Latino undergraduate students with STEM degrees. Many of these students come from the surrounding communities in Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties and so UCR is ideally equipped to extend its success in STEM education to K-12 students. Riverside Unified School District serves over 45,000 students, the majority of which are minority students who are both under-represented in STEM fields (53% are Latino) and economically disadvantaged (two-thirds of RUSD schools are classified as "High Poverty"). The Geoscience Education Outreach Program, funded through a NASA GCCE grant, is specifically designed to use UCR's resources to draw RUSD students into the STEM pipeline.

GEOP is a unique program that combines multiple outreach avenues which engage RUSD students in geoscience. Graduate students visit 90-100 K-6 classrooms to present hour-long presentations on various geoscience topics. K-12 students and their families are invited to campus for an annual Community Climate Fair to learn about climate science and sustainability. Undergraduate students produce new media, like YouTube videos, Twitter feeds and podcasts, to educate the community about climate science. GEOP is designed to strengthen the lines of scientific communication between UCR and the communities that surround it.