Pre-college Urban Ecology Research Mentoring: Engaging Underrepresented Minorities the Fields of Ecology and Conservation
Start Date
2-5-2018 4:00 PM
End Date
2-5-2018 6:00 PM
Abstract
Despite continued efforts to recruit and retain underrepresented racial minorities (URMs)—African Americans, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders, and Latinx—in the sciences, only 21.7% of 4-year science degrees were awarded to URM’s in the United States during 2014. While research mentoring programs at the undergraduate level increase the retention of URMs already majoring in the sciences , contextual (e.g., role-model relationships) and psychological (e.g., science identity) factors that develop long before college may limit the number of URMs who choose to study the sciences and pursue environmental-related careers in the first place. Therefore, to increase diversity in these areas it is critical to reach students before they make decisions about college. Funded by NSF, Project TRUE (Teens Researching Urban Ecology) is an urban ecology summer research mentoring program in NYC aimed at URM rising high school seniors. Immediately following Project TRUE, 54.9% (50 of 91) of participants reported a change in academic intent towards an ecology-related major. While some participants did not change their interest towards an ecology-related degree, 94.5% planned to pursue a STEM degree and students reported on a 7 point Likert Scale (1 = “not at all”, 7 = “a lot”) that Project TRUE had a mean influence of 6.5 on “knowledge of science” and “intention to go to college” and a mean influence of 6.2 on “want to help take care of the environment”. These data suggest that Project TRUE had a strong influence on student academic intentions, science identity, and pro-environmental attitudes.
Subjects
Environmental education, Environmental policy, Environmental social sciences
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/25657
Rights
© Copyright the author(s)
IN COPYRIGHT:
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
DISCLAIMER:
The purpose of this statement is to help the public understand how this Item may be used. When there is a (non-standard) License or contract that governs re-use of the associated Item, this statement only summarizes the effects of some of its terms. It is not a License, and should not be used to license your Work. To license your own Work, use a License offered at https://creativecommons.org/
Pre-college Urban Ecology Research Mentoring: Engaging Underrepresented Minorities the Fields of Ecology and Conservation
Despite continued efforts to recruit and retain underrepresented racial minorities (URMs)—African Americans, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders, and Latinx—in the sciences, only 21.7% of 4-year science degrees were awarded to URM’s in the United States during 2014. While research mentoring programs at the undergraduate level increase the retention of URMs already majoring in the sciences , contextual (e.g., role-model relationships) and psychological (e.g., science identity) factors that develop long before college may limit the number of URMs who choose to study the sciences and pursue environmental-related careers in the first place. Therefore, to increase diversity in these areas it is critical to reach students before they make decisions about college. Funded by NSF, Project TRUE (Teens Researching Urban Ecology) is an urban ecology summer research mentoring program in NYC aimed at URM rising high school seniors. Immediately following Project TRUE, 54.9% (50 of 91) of participants reported a change in academic intent towards an ecology-related major. While some participants did not change their interest towards an ecology-related degree, 94.5% planned to pursue a STEM degree and students reported on a 7 point Likert Scale (1 = “not at all”, 7 = “a lot”) that Project TRUE had a mean influence of 6.5 on “knowledge of science” and “intention to go to college” and a mean influence of 6.2 on “want to help take care of the environment”. These data suggest that Project TRUE had a strong influence on student academic intentions, science identity, and pro-environmental attitudes.