LINKING UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH WITH COMMUNITY OUTREACH IN ARGENTINA: THE INTERNATIONAL FELLOWS PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-EAU CLAIRE

International immersion experiences and collaborative student/faculty research are hallmarks of the undergraduate curriculum at UW-Eau Claire. In 2010, students voted in favor of a tuition surcharge called the Blugold Commitment, which supports high-impact practices including collaborative research and global/multicultural immersion experiences. The International Fellows Program (IFP), initiated in 2012, is dedicated to supporting international student-faculty collaborative research/creative activity and service-learning opportunities.

In 2013, IFP supported a project entitled Establishing Societal Linkages: Introducing the Relevance of the Geology of the Andes to Argentinian Secondary-School Students. This program expanded on the relationship between faculty and Argentinian professionals established during a semester-long multidisciplinary immersion experience (2011 TIES Argentina) and by a subsequent 2012 NSF Tectonics grant. The IFP had two principal components: 1) educational outreach, involving development of a short course for secondary school students that describes the close linkage between geology and society in Mendoza, Argentina. UWEC students designed a series of ‘hands-on’ laboratory exercises that introduced the students to earthquakes, volcanoes, and plate tectonics, utilizing the Andes as a natural laboratory. UWEC students interacted with approximately 150 students and 9 faculty to present a short course to students grades 9-12 at Colegio ICEI. The educational program was extremely successful, and the Colegio has requested that the presentation become a semi-annual event; 2) student/faculty collaborative research, with the students collaborated in international research, including regional planning sessions, analysis of stratigraphic sections, geologic mapping, and geochronologic and geochemical sampling transects. They participated in analysis of the Las Penas and Uspallata basins, and are currently conducting geochronologic and isotopic geochemistry analyses. The lead author will expand her research interests in Argentina into a M.Sc. project at San Diego State University, starting in 2014. The groundwork set during the IFP has led to three (3) additional UWEC students conducting ongoing collaborative research in Argentina.