CREATING A GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION COMMUNITY AROUND LOCAL GEOLOGIC PHENOMENA TO FOSTERING STEM CAREER PATHWAYS

Southern Nevada presents a unique geological landscape ideal for highlighting scientific phenomena that high school students can leverage to learn about geology and geology-related career fields. This NSF-funded GeoPaths Project focuses on creating a community of geoscience educators through a collaboration between high school geology teachers (n=14), district administration (n=1), educational researchers (n=3), and geologists (n=9). We frame this project through a Communities of Practice lens (Lave, 1991), which emphasizes engagement and participation in a community to gain a deeper understanding and mastery of content and use Gee’s (2014) model of discourse and identity to support navigation in and through the community, speaking to aspects of saying (words and language), doing (i.e., gestures, clothing, etc.), and being (i.e., values and beliefs). These frameworks guided the research question: When learning and teaching about local geologic phenomena, what aspects of the process do high school geology teachers value towards improving their educational praxis and community? To answer this question, we conducted an illustrative case study centering high school teachers’ experiences during a week-long Professional Learning opportunity (PL) which introduced local phenomena to support teachers in creating locally relevant geoscience units highlighting geology-related STEM careers. Using inductive coding, we have performed a thematic analysis and found that during a PL, teachers valued community building, access to experts, and space to develop their praxis, while some also appreciated other aspects, including field trips, lab tours, and compensation. The theme of Community would often occur with expertise and lesson planning, which is one of the reasons for its prevalence. One participant provided this example of Community/Expertise “I really liked how many people were a part of this project. Having a collaboration between the Geoscience Department, State Parks, Education Department, and CCSD together...brought in so many perspectives and was very motivating. (#10)”

Lave, J. (1991). Situating learning in communities of practice.

Gee, J. P. (2000). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of Research in Education, 25, 99-125.