RESEARCH-DRIVEN MENTORSHIP TO DEVELOP LEADERSHIP AND LOCALLY CONTEXTUALIZED UNDERSTANDING OF THE GEOSCIENCES IN UNDERGRADUATE AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

In geoscience education, the world can be the classroom. A geologic community in Las Vegas has exemplified this principle through the NSF-Funded GeoPaths Legends Program, extending didactic outreach to the Clark County School District to facilitate authentic learning of foundational Earth science. A core arm of how this goal was met was through the UNLV GeoAmbassador program. In the spring of 2023, this initiative enlisted undergraduate students majoring in geoscience (5) to mentor and engage with high school students (11) and teachers from the fifth largest urban school district in the country, exploring the research question: How do near-peer mentors support and facilitate developing STEM career pathways? To answer that question, UNLV GeoAmbassadors describe their working with and mentoring high school students and their metacognitive insights into processes of teaching and how this affected their own learning of geoscience content and careers. Projects leveraging Nevadan geoscience were established to include high school students in college-level research; this proposal describes some of these projects. E.g. : (1) The laboratory modeling of Mojave edaphology and evaporative hydrology. (2) The use of Zircon U-Pb petrochronology to date the Saddle Island Formation Precambrian basement rock. There were five projects in total. Through field and lab study of these local geoscience phenomena, students fostered a scientific understanding and appreciation of both university research settings and their environment. Program outcomes aim to benefit youth students professionally and personally and to provide experience in communicative leadership for undergraduate GeoAmbassadors. For high school participants, the provided field education and hands-on experience can create access to the dynamic geology of the Las Vegas area, as well as foster self-driven learning and confidence in professional research settings. Simultaneously for the GeoAmbassadors, the mentorship role developed critical field, lab, and education skills necessary to be more effective future geoscientists.