From GSA: Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Geoscience Degrees and Careers

Dear Geoscience Education Division Members,

If you are working with community college students or transfer students from community colleges and have an interest in providing them with excellent career resources, great research experiences, internships or short apprenticeship programs to learn more about careers, geotechnical training programs, and/or other career development or workforce development programs and strategies, please read on. Open to faculty and administrators from both two-year/four-year colleges and universities and other agencies or organizations that support community college students.
Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Geoscience Degrees and Careers
University of Washington-Tacoma, WA
18-21 July 2012
Application deadline: 19 March 2012

Building a strong and diverse geoscience workforce is a critical national challenge. Two-year colleges (2YCs) play an important role in increasing both the number and diversity of geoscience graduates. This workshop will develop resources, strategies, and recommendations for preparing students in two-year colleges for geoscience careers, either as geotechnical graduates or as geoscience majors at four-year colleges and universities. In addition, the workshop will explore the scope and potential for geoscience technical training (e.g., earth resources, environmental management, and marine technology).

This workshop will bring together geoscience faculty and administrators from two-year colleges, four-year colleges and universities with representatives from professional organizations and government agencies. We will share successful practices in 2YC college-transfer and geotechnical workforce programs, research and internship programs for 2YC geoscience students, and geoscience careers and career resource, and will work together to develop new strategies and recommendations from the classroom to the national level. This workshop will be a great opportunity to share ideas for strategies to promote student success.

The goals of this workshop are to:
• Identify and document the successes and challenges of programs, activities, and resources that support career preparation of 2YC students for the geosciences
• Develop a vision for programs, resources, and materials to improve the preparation of 2YC students for geosciences careers and degrees
• Explore strategies and make recommendations to increase the number and diversity of geoscience professionals coming from two-year colleges
• Establish a network of leaders who will promote and support activities that prepare 2YC students as geotechnicians and geoscience majors

The workshop will include plenary talks, panelist presentations, small and large group discussions, individual presentations or posters, planning/writing sessions, and time for networking and collaboration. Our grant covers travel costs and onsite food and lodging expenses for faculty participants.

More information about the workshop is given on the workshop webpage , which also has a link to the online application form.

This workshop is part of the program, Supporting and Advancing Geoscience in Two-year Colleges (SAGE 2YC). SAGE 2YC is sponsored by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers and funding is provided by grants from the National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education.

Please forward to others who might be interested in the workshop.

Thanks,

Heather Macdonald, College of William & Mary
Eric Baer, Highline Community College
Robert Blodgett, Austin Community College
Jan Hodder, University of Oregon

Sadredin Moosavi
Chair, GSA Geoscience Education Division
Department of Science
Rochester Community Technical College

Nominate an Outstanding Earth Science Teacher of the Year! You Know Someone Who Deserves it

A what?

An Outstanding Earth Science Teacher of the year! There are a lot of teachers out there in California, Nevada and Arizona who are in the trenches of warfare against ignorance and apathy. If you are a teacher, you know the feeling of frustration that can come with students who don't seem to care, and yet you do all you can to make the sciences come alive. And once in a while you find you made a difference. Sometimes it may be years before you find out, but there are always the students who couldn't look like they were interested, but later on, inspired to go to college, they get back to the geological sciences, because of the interest you sparked. Or even better, they become teachers of the geosciences. And sometimes you even hear about it, and sometimes they will come back to thank you.

It's wonderful when that happens, but that also can be a rare event.

If you know a teacher of the earth sciences who tries to go that extra mile to bring the sciences alive, there is another way to grant him or her the recognition that they deserve. You can nominate them to be the Far Western Section's Outstanding Earth Science Teacher of the year. We can never know who the single best teacher is. We can only recognize the ones who deserve a bit of extra attention because they are the ones who put their heart into their work every day.

 

Outstanding Earth Science Teacher (OEST) awards are given for "exceptional contributions to the stimulation of interest in the Earth Sciences at the secondary level." Middle school and high-school teachers are eligible. Only ten national awardees are selected each year, one from each NAGT regional section.

• 2 year complementary membership in NAGT
  
• 3 year complimentary membership in the Geological Society of America (GSA)
  
• 3 year complimentary membership in GSA Geoscience Education Division
  
• $500 travel funds to a GSA meeting
  
• $500 classroom improvement funds from GSA

It is a straightforward process to nominate an OEST. The information can be found here. The deadline is May 1. Give it some thought: someone you know is a truly excellent teacher, and they deserve to know it.

Schedule of Events at the March 2-4 Meeting of the Far Western Section at Zzyzx, CA

Check beneath the fold for the final version of the schedule for the events at the spring meeting of the Far Western Section, to be held this weekend (March 2-4). Hope to see you there!

Honors Earth Science and University of California "d" Level Laboratory Courses

From Wendy Van Nordon at NESTA (National Earth Science Teachers Association):

"Are you interested in teaching an Honors Earth Science class? Would you like to help a local high school teacher to do so? At the website honorsearthscience.com you can find the curriculum of an Honors Earth Science course that was accepted by the University of California as an honors, “d” level laboratory course. It is designed to be a capstone course for 11^th and 12^th grade college bound high school students. It can easily be adapted to be a dual level course by collaboration with a local college. At the website you will also find a link to an Honors Geology course that is also a dual-credit course, and a podcast explaining the benefits of a dual-credit course. You are encouraged to add your name and the name of your school if you are interested in adopting one of these courses or partnering with a high school teacher who would like to adopt one of the two honors courses. For more information, contact Wendy Van Norden ."

Acute Need for Geoscientists (From GSA)

From the Geological Society of America:

Acute Demand for U.S. Geoscientists Prompts Call for Higher Ed Action

Boulder, CO, USA – A recent American Geosciences Institute workforce evaluation estimates that by 2021, some 150,000 to 220,000 geoscience jobs will need to be filled. The AGI report notes that at current graduation rates, most of these jobs will not be able to be filled by U.S. citizens.

Citing great concern about the acute need for well-trained, well-educated geoscience graduates to fill the geoscience workforce, Geological Society of America President John Geissman is calling for colleges and universities to recognize the value of strong, adequately supported geoscience departments. High-quality geoscience education, Geissman notes, is essential to understanding and adequately addressing the “very pressing needs of our society,” including sustainability and human-caused climate change, as well as keeping the growing number of geoscience jobs filled by U.S. citizens.

Included in his call for action, Geissman refers to two very recently approved GSA Position Statements that focus on the importance of teaching earth science and expanding and improving geoscience education in institutions of higher learning.

Both position statements are online at www.geosociety.org/positions/. All GSA position statements include suggestions for how to implement and support the call to action.

“The Importance of Teaching Earth Science” recognizes that basic knowledge of earth science is essential to meeting the environmental challenges and natural resource limitations of the twenty-first century and notes that earth-science education should begin at the K–12 level and include advanced classes led by well-qualified science teachers.

“Expanding and Improving Geoscience in Higher Education” calls specifically for robust, well-supported geoscience departments not only to ensure an increase in the number of geoscience students available to the workforce but also to provide the training necessary “to address crucial societal issues that have the potential to impact global economic security and the well-being of human populations” across the globe.

John Geissman is a professor at The University of Texas at Dallas, emeritus professor at the University of New Mexico, and Geological Society of America president through 30 June 2012.

Spring Meeting of the Far Western Section-NAGT in the Mojave Desert at Zzyzx, CA on March 2-4: Updated Information

The spring meeting of the Far Western Section of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers will take place on March 2-4, 2012 at the Desert Studies Center in Zzyzx, California. We appreciate the work that El Camino College is doing to organize the meeting. Field trips will explore the mining history, geologic history, and volcanism of the Mojave Desert, the Quaternary landscape and distribution of biota, and the lava tubes of Pisgah Crater. More information and registration forms can be found on the Far Western Section website at http://nagt-fws.org/conferences.html.

Updated information on the field trips and field trip leaders can be found below the fold:

A Note from Cal Paleo (April 14th)

A note from Cal Paleo:

A brief update concerning registration and abstract submission for Cal Paleo 2012:

The Cal Paleo 2012 website (http://calpaleo.ucr.edu) is now up! We will be adding more information concerning the conference program, parking, lodging, etc. in the next few weeks.

Please register at http://calpaleo.ucr.edu/registration.html. The registration deadline is March 31^st, 2012.

In addition to graduate and undergraduate students, post-doctoral researchers, faculty and non-university affiliated researchers are invited to submit abstracts for poster presentations; graduate students will be given preference for oral presentations. Using the downloadable abstract template at http://calpaleo.ucr.edu/abstract.html, please submit abstracts as attachments by email to calpaleo1@gmail.com. Please be sure to include your last name in the subject line. Please also note (in the email body): 1) whether you are a faculty member, post-doc, graduate student, undergraduate student or other and 2) whether you would prefer an oral or poster presentation. Abstracts are due by March 1^st, 2012.

Once again, please pass on this information to your paleontological colleagues and students! Also feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns at calpaleo1@gmail.com.

 Hope to see you at UC Riverside on Saturday, April 14^th!

Cheers,

Lidya Tarhan

Ryan McKenzie

Paleobiology Program

Department of Earth Sciences
University of California, Riverside
900 University AveRiverside, CA 92521