EARLY RESEARCH EXPERIENCES FOR UNDERGRADUATES: A MECHANISM FOR SKILLS DEVELOPMENT AND PARTICIPATION IN THE GEOSCIENCES FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS

Students attending community colleges may be unaware of their academic strengths and weaknesses, academic potential and interests, and career opportunities in the geosciences. How can geoscience faculty at 2YCs address these issues with their large and diverse populations of learners? For selected students, an individual research project may be assigned and implemented in a manner that promotes curiosity, self-esteem, and development of critical thinking and technical skills. As reported in the literature, undergraduate research experience participants gain confidence and clarity about their career options and desires. The Earth Sciences and Astronomy Department at Mt. San Antonio College has developed programs that allow us to offer opportunities with varying research components to students primarily from historically underrepresented populations in the geosciences. The suite of research experiences includes individual projects, group projects, field courses, Special Projects courses, and mentoring from department faculty and professionals from outside the department. We will discuss several examples of these experiences, including SIRI internships at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, data collection for calibration of a low-angle reflectance lab, multi-semester fluvial sedimentology, mapping, and asteroid search projects. The underlying themes for these experiences are an emphasis on data collection and analysis, self-directed learning with minimal guidance from faculty, establishment of research protocols, justification for decisions made, and presentation of results at local, regional, and/or national meetings including SCCUR, GSA, and AGU. Students who have completed one or more of these projects have been accepted for transfer for 4-year institutions and report increased motivation to continue pursuing their degree including completing their requisite courses in physics, chemistry, and math. Faculty face many workload, resource, and pedagogy-related challenges to implementing these programs but report satisfaction with students' accomplishments and progress.