COLLABORATION IN SUPPORT OF EARTH-LIFE TRANSITION RESEARCH, THE ROLE OF THE STEPPE INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

STEPPE is an NSF-supported consortium whose purpose is to promote multidisciplinary research and education on Earth’s deep-time sedimentary crust and is working to develop tools that will facilitate collaboration across the community. STEPPE has implemented a new internship program to help develop these tools and to give students and early professionals an opportunity to gain experience in community development and public policy. STEPPE interns have become an integral part of achieving the STEPPE mission. Early achievements include the compilation of various community resources ranging from a comprehensive workshop/conference calendar to an extensive searchable and dynamic funding database covering both traditional and non-traditional sources of funding. Databases of this sort expose members of the community to the wealth of financial resources available to them that otherwise would go unnoticed.

Interns also have been part of the ongoing geoscience policy conversation in Washington D.C. and have communicated issues affecting the deep-time community through regular blog posts (steppe.org). Additionally, interns have participated in a field-based professional development workshop for teachers, thus serving STEPPE’s education and public outreach mission. Efficient collaboration only takes place when the underlying infrastructure enables effective communication and information sharing. To this end, STEPPE interns worked on developing an online collaborative platform designed to promote scientific dialogue among scientists, engage the public in these conversations, and provide an online space for research and interest groups to discuss, collaborate, and connect. Being a conversation hub for all stakeholders, the platform also strives to engage and educate policy makers on relevant geoscience issues. It is only when all stakeholders are involved in these discussions that meaningful decisions can be made. While barriers to collaboration still exist in the deep-time community, developing tools to overcome funding, communication and regulatory difficulties makes collaboration easier.

Involving students in this process ultimately benefits not only the interns, but the deep-time sedimentary crust community as well.