NSF IUSE PROGRAM OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION COMMUNITY

The Summit on the Future of Undergraduate Geoscience Education (http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/events/future-of-geoscience-undergraduateeducation/) identified a number of critical items toward improving the quality of geoscience undergraduate curricula, broaden participation in the geosciences, and meet the rapidly growing workforce needs for geoscience graduates. Many of the findings of the Summit for the geosciences are also identified as STEM-wide priorities in the new solicitation for NSF’s Innovation in Undergraduate STEM Education program (IUSE: NSF-14588), affording the geoscience community a timely opportunity to catalyze educational transformation on local and national scales.

The goals of IUSE are well aligned with the Summit ambition to more widely implement recognized best practices in geoscience education, to increase the numbers of students graduating with geoscience degrees, and to test promising strategies for bringing more under-represented students into the field. The Summit finding that changes in academic reward systems and cultures at colleges and universities are needed to foster necessary improvements in geoscience instruction are echoed in IUSE language calling for collaboration among faculty, Chairs and senior administrators at institutions and across institutions to foster sustainable changes in educational practice. Projects seeking to foster wide adoption of educational innovations, to implement sustainable bridging strategies between 2-year and 4 year institutions and/or between “gateway” introductory courses and geoscience majors, and to prepare more future K-12 educators who can teach the Next Generation Science Standards earth science content - all efforts mandated in the Summit report - are listed topics of interest in the new IUSE solicitation. While one must carefully review and respond to any solicitation in preparing a proposal, the recent Summit report and other like geoscience community documents provide a solid foundation for building an IUSE request.