Nationwide, African-American &
Hispanic students are disproportionately underrepresented in the
field of science and especially in the geosciences. Racial minority
groups represent about 25% of the population, and earn about 15% of
the total bachelor’s degrees granted in science and engineering; and
only 4.6% of the geosciences BS degrees (NSF Geosciences Diversity
Workshop, 2000;
www.geo.nsf.gov/geo/diversity). Kansas City has a
large and vibrant Hispanic and African-American communities and our
education outreach programs are focused on strengthening the
educational preparation and expanding science career opportunities
for the youth from these communities. Initiatives that are currently
being implemented in partnership with the Kansas City Missouri
School District (KCMO) and the UMKC School Of Education (SOE)
include projects funded by NSF (GEOPATHS) and the Missouri
Department of Higher Education (GeoMAP). A third initiative, the
UMKC Minority Outreach Science Enrichment Program
(MOSEP) provides
academic mentoring and summer research exposure to middle school
aged students in the Kansas City area. These
projects promote innovative methods for teaching and learning
scientific principles through inquiry by leveraging resources from
national programs such as GLOBE (www.globe.gov)
and IRIS (http://www.iris.edu).
The GLOBE Program is a hands-on
science and education program that unites students, teachers,
and scientists from around the world in study and research about
the dynamics of Earth’s environment. Over a million GLOBE
students in more than 14,000 schools located in 100 countries
are taking important environmental measurements, using their
data in their own research and also making it available to
scientists around the world. Dr. Adegoke is a GLOBE certified
trainer and the U.S. National GLOBE Partner responsible for the
Kansas City area.