Sean Cornell, Geography-Earth Science, is a co-PI for an NSF Grant in the amount of $397,822. The grant is titled GP-UP: Building a Geoscience Field Learning Ecosystem for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. The project was approved as part of NSF’s Geopaths Undergraduate Prep program and is funded for a 3 year period. The grant is in partnership with faculty from IUP, Cal U, Edinoro, Kutztown and other universities. Dr. Joseph Zume will also contribute to the project.
This project will establish a team-taught, traveling summer Geosciences Field Learning program that will enhance collaborations (i.e. between faculty, industry partners, and students); improve field-based instruction to increase preparedness for graduate school and workforce pathways; and introduce Geoscience career pathways to precollege students especially underrepresented minorities. At its core, the web of connections established by the program will support cutting-edge team-taught field instruction through a PASSHE-wide Geoscience Field Course (GFC) along with high school outreach short courses for students across PA. The project capitalizes on the diversity of resources throughout PA, including:
1) the diverse faculty expertise in the 11 Geoscience departments within PASSHE;
2) PA’s diverse geology, which spans a billion years and encompasses igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic provinces, varied structure, stratigraphy, and geomorphology, and opportunities for geophysics, hydrogeology, paleontology, and mapping techniques;
3) our diverse student body from rural, suburban, and urban communities, including traditional URMs as well as rural, financially challenged, and first-generation students;
4) PA’s diverse Geoscience industries (energy, mining, geological engineering, water resources, environmental remediation, and others), and
5) our extensive networks of pre-college educator alumni working in school districts across the region.
