TEAM-BASED COMMUNITY OUTREACH: A TOOL FOR DEVELOPING SCIENTIFIC IDENTITY AND SOCIAL BELONGING IN TRAINEES AND PROMOTING GEOSCIENCE LITERACY

As part of the Center for Diverse Leadership in Science, student and postdoctoral fellows propose, support, and lead community engagement programs that promote diversity and inclusion and/or improve awareness of geoscience/environmental science, in ways that are personally meaningful to them. Trainees are encouraged to work in teams to plan outreach activities, and are supported by staff and faculty, for several reasons. First, involvement in outreach programs facilitates the development of scientific identity, engages communities within and outside of the university, and fosters leadership skills. It promotes the development of scientific identity because those who participate in outreach have an opportunity to serve as teachers and improve their scientific understanding because they continually revisit concepts they have learned. Additionally, active learning is supported by engaging in outreach because it enables all fellows to participate in learning conversations. It is also an opportunity for community involvement and for highlighting diverse role models, and therefore should be a powerful tool for retaining underrepresented trainees in STEM. We promote a team-based approach to foster social belonging and the development of networks, and because diversity within a working group of any kind leads to more successful collaboration, which in turn leads to innovation. Some of the innovative programs of outreach our teams created include: Climate Currents, Diversi-TEA and Courageous Coffee, Youth Education and Empowerment in Earth and Environmental Science (Y4ES), Environmental Justice and First Nations, Environmental Science without Borders (ESWB), and Community College Outreach.