IDIGBIO: THE EVOLUTION OF BROADENING PARTICIPATION THROUGH EDUCATION AND OUTREACH

NSF’s Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections (ADBC) program along with its coordinating center iDigBio, is a leader in the digitization of natural history collections (NHC). iDigBio supports the collections community by providing digitization and workforce training, developing cyberinfrastructure to enable long-term preservation of data and promoting novel and traditional uses of NHC data in research, education and outreach. Results from our training workshop and webinar evaluations revealed a striking lack of diversity in the biological sciences. As a result, iDigBio considered how to move the needle in broadening participation (BP) within the NHC community. BP activities began with a workshop series focusing on career and graduate study opportunities in field and environmental biology, biodiversity and evolution. Recruitment for these programs targeted universities with diverse demographics. The workshops connected students to emerging professionals and near peers with diverse backgrounds. iDigBio collaborates with multiple programs that share the same goals of BP including BLUE, QUBES and TRiO to reach a broader audience of undergraduates, graduate students and university faculty, providing workshops and professional development (PD) for participants. Beginning in 2018, iDigBio expanded its outreach to include PD workshops for K-12 educators working in underserved communities, introducing educators to the importance of NHCs, digitization and the use of biodiversity data in the classroom to improve bioliteracy. All programs are assessed by the project evaluator, aiding in the modifications of the workshops to ensure they are relevant, accessible and effective. As beneficial as these have been, one challenge has been the ability to build, maintain and track long-term impacts. Therefore, building off our short-form workshops we are developing summer internship opportunities for undergraduates and will track impacts. Recruitment will occur at institutions from underserved communities (e.g. community colleges, tribal colleges and universities) near ADBC partners. These competitive summer internships will equip awardees with 21^st century skills, research experience, and, most importantly, expose them to the multitude of careers within the biological sciences.