In this article, we describe two large-scale, professional development programs that are grounded in communities of practice in the geosciences. Each program uniquely fostered leadership skills among the participants, and many community college instructors emerged as leaders on their campuses and beyond.

Providing pathways that support geoscience transfer students from two-year colleges (2YC) to four-year colleges and universities (4YCU) addresses enrollment challenges, diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, and helps build the 21st-century geoscience workforce. Building bridges between 2YC-4YCU programs can happen in various ways, all of which…

As one of the STEM disciplines with the lowest percentages of minoritized students and professionals, faculty and administrators in the geosciences have an opportunity to address racism within the context of their classrooms and campuses. In response, a group of community college geoscience faculty from disparate institutions across the U.S. came…

This chapter addresses the engagement of geoscience societies with community college faculty, traces the emergence of the Geo2YC Division as a model for others, and provides examples that focus on ways to build a professional community.

Research has shown that modern courses and programs designed to foster critical thinking vary in both content and delivery, in turn leading to differences in their effectiveness. Few studies have investigated critical thinking among nontraditional students at community colleges taking STEM courses, especially within the geosciences. Furthermore,…

During remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed and implemented a place-based, 5E mini-unit for New York City high school and community college Earth science students, most of whom identify as belonging to non-dominant groups. As well as supporting standard science skills such as graphing and interpreting data, we leveraged…

This study investigated the impact of training in self-regulated learning on community college, geoscience students' achievement, metacognition, time management, and science motivation scales. The study also investigated the impact of SRL training on these outcomes as a function of gender and ethnicity. During the Fall of 2022, 70 community…

The Geo-Launchpad Program is a pre-Research Experience for Undergraduates (pre-REU) providing a summer internship and professional development for two-year college (2YC) students from Colorado. The program goal was to build students' interest and capacity to engage in geoscience-focused STEM career pathways. The pre-REU helped students develop…

This study details the mentored research component of a program intended to recruit, retain, and transfer students attending a two-year college (2YC) to four-year geosciences programs. Eighteen of 20 students who started the program were from minoritized backgrounds: 12 women, six racial/ethnic minorities, 12 low-income, and 13 first-generation…

Two-year community college (CC) students face many barriers for recruitment and retention into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields and vertical transfer to 4-year universities (4YUs). Experiential learning, mentoring, and cohort building are effective mechanisms for increasing STEM recruitment and retention, and close…

An opportunity exists to attract students from historically underrepresented communities into the geosciences, the least diverse of the STEM fields. Home to a diverse population, Riverside County in Southern California supports several community colleges with thriving geoscience programs where students can take a range of geology courses in…

Community colleges are a major entry point for many students to post-secondary education, particularly for minority, first-generation, low-income, and older students. A range of factors including transfer-readiness, curricular alignment, financial barriers, and transfer guidance, influence successful transfer between two-year colleges (2YCs) and…

Although field and research experiences have been shown to help retain students in the geosciences, there is less known about how and why this is the case. We created a field-based research experience for five students with a range of backgrounds and prior experiences. We used mixed methods case study research to identify affect-related…

Objective/Research Question: This paper reports on data collected in a multi-year National Science Foundation grant project involving a professional development (PD) model built to support community college faculty as change agents (CAs). The research question was: How do disciplinary communities of practice (CoP) emerge among community college…

The adoption of enrollment-based budgeting at many institutions poses serious problems for geoscience programs that have been facing enrollment challenges in recent years, particularly in response to drops in the price of oil and gas. This commentary describes the impetus for, and results of, the Pathways to the Geosciences program at Texas…