Summer Geoscience Field Trips for Minority High School Students— Successes and Challenges in Louisiana and Beyond

Diane F. Maygarden¹, Heather L. Egger¹, and Ivan P. Gill²
¹Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New Orleans, 2000 Lakeshore Dr., New Orleans, Louisiana 70148
²Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of New Orleans, 2000 Lakeshore Dr., New Orleans, Louisiana 70148

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project Minority Education Through Traveling and Learning in the Sciences (METALS) program aligns four universities with strong field geology programs, an institutional history of emphasizing teaching and mentoring in the geosciences, and a commitment to providing access to college for underrepresented minorities. The METALS partnership between geoscience diversity programs at San Francisco State University (SFSU), the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), the University of New Orleans (UNO), and Purdue University is designed to create unique and pivotal learning experiences for high school students in field settings. To this end, each participating institution recruits 10 minority students each summer and the four groups meet to travel together to learn about the geology of a part of the U.S. familiar to the hosting university. For each collaborating institution, METALS represents a continuation of work that has been ongoing for many years, producing meaningful results in terms of encouraging minority students to enter college and pursue careers in the geosciences. This paper will discuss not only the near-term results of strategies applied to implement a field experience for a large group in southern Louisiana in 2011, but also the longer term results of UNO’s program, the Minority Awareness Geosciences Program (MAP).

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90158©2012 GCAGS and GC-SEPM 6nd Annual Convention, Austin, Texas, 21-24 October 2012