STUDENT-LED OUTREACH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

The University of Oklahoma’s School of Geology and Geophysics and the Pick and Hammer student geology club are conducting outreach to expose K-12 students to geoscience concepts. To enhance diversity and increase participation in a STEM field, about half of the students who attend these events are female and significant numbers of minority students are also reached. Our outreach efforts are supported by the School, as well as a grant from Halliburton. While faculty members provide guidance, this is a student-led and organized effort. This outreach began in 2012 with an idea to create rock and mineral kits for schools in Joplin, Missouri, after the tornado, and it sparked an initiative to donate our time. Our mission is to spread our knowledge and passion about geosciences within central Oklahoma. This program is multi-faceted; we have visited classrooms, provided tours, given talks, made and provided mineral kits to teachers, and procured a teaching collection that will help us to continue this program. We have run over 30 outreach events with 46 student volunteers and reached over 500 students in the last year.

By using focused geoscience curricula created for each age group, the students learn fundamental concepts that they can build upon through their schooling. The most basic geologic topics are the focus for the elementary school group. We conduct school visits and tours of our building, where they participate in short workshops and demonstrations on geophysics, river processes using a stream table, and basic rock/mineral identification. We expose middle school students to the classical laws of geology, and at a career fair we introduce them to the various disciplines of geology. We have also helped coach and mentor a Science Olympiad team from a middle school that placed 2^nd in the statewide competition. With the high school group, the main focus is to introduce the same type of material that is taught in an introductory geology course, but on a more basic level. We provide lunchtime talks and aim to heighten their understanding of current geoscience issues, as well as teach them about careers in the geosciences. Our outreach program also provides schools and teachers with the knowledge and resources necessary to continue educating their students on their own.