APPLYING DEI BEST PRACTICES TO CAREER-FOCUSED INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS FOR UNDERGRADUATES

Future career aspirations are often a critical element in the engagement and recruitment of geoscience majors. However, for many instructors, the challenge of curating career-directed content in their courses meets two obstacles: commonly available materials either highlight a narrow band of job functions or showcase only a limited range of people as interested and able to do the work. The materials we present to our students need to clear both obstacles if we aim to strengthen our discipline with a diverse workforce.

Our team developed video content that briefly introduces several subdisciplines of geophysics for an asynchronous online Geophysics Careers Module. These six videos describe what professionals in each subdiscipline do and how they do it, and discuss what students with different identities might do to pursue these careers. Our iterative process involved several layers of review within our own team, our professional networks, and subject matter experts. Extending the module’s DEI lens to the videos involved a focus on the scripts, visuals, and animations. We expanded on the scientific content to include the societal and human impacts associated with these career trajectories. We intentionally reduced jargon and incorporated inclusive language, diverse representation, and accessibility in an effort to appeal to a broad cross-section of students early in their undergraduate education.

The lessons we learned through this collaborative process can be applied outside of this specific Geophysics Careers Module and into other introductory geoscience courses. For example, we anticipate that future videos using this approach could be created to introduce the range of geoscience careers unfamiliar to undergraduates, like near-surface geophysics or geospatial careers. The critical elements for future videos feature language and visuals that broaden the scope of the available career paths, increase accessibility, and showcase those who are encouraged to fill them.