SUMMER HIGH SCHOOL MINORITY PROGRAM IN GEOLOGY

For 36 years the University of New Orleans Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (UNO EES) (formerly the Department of Geology and Geophysics) has offered summer out-of-state geosciences field trips for minority high school students. Initiated by Dr. Louis Fernandez in 1974 as a minority recruiting tool, and funded by a grant from NSF, the program has since thrived on funding from a variety of sponsors. The program was later expanded to include scholarship funding and mentoring, and other support for minority students at UNO-EES. Over the years the program has evolved and changed with the times and people involved, but retained its underlying goal of providing motivating field experiences for outstanding minority high school students of the New Orleans area.

The long-term goals of the program include increasing participation by minorities and underrepresented groups in the field of geosciences. The specific goals include providing field experiences in the western states for minority high school students with the aim of opening their minds to a career in earth sciences. We put our energy into three important components of the program: recruitment, program design and field trip coordination, and long term follow-up with the students.This paper will focus on the recent years of the program and the changes it has experienced during that time, including recovery from Hurricane Katrina and the beginning of an exciting partnership with University of Texas, El Paso (UTEP), San Francisco State University (SFSU) and Purdue University in the form of the NSF funded Minority Education Through Traveling and Learning in the Sciences (METALS) program.