National Science Foundation: Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Pathways into Geoscience

The National Science Foundation’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) initiative, launched in Fiscal Year 2014, supports a coherent set of investments to address immediate challenges and opportunities that are facing undergraduate STEM education, as well as those that anticipate new structures (e.g. organizational changes, new methods for certification or credentialing, course re-conception, cyberlearning, etc.) and new functions of the undergraduate learning and teaching enterprise.  The NSF-wide IUSE initiative acknowledges the variety of discipline-specific challenges and opportunities facing STEM faculty as they strive to incorporate results from educational research into classroom practice and work with education research colleagues and social science learning scholars to advance our understanding of effective teaching and learning.

Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Pathways into Geoscience invites proposals that specifically address the current needs and opportunities related to undergraduate education within the geosciences community. The primary goal of the Pathways into Geoscience funding opportunity is to increase the number of undergraduate students interested in pursuing undergraduate degrees and/or post-graduate degrees in geoscience through the design and testing of novel approaches for engaging students in authentic, career-relevant experiences in geoscience. In order to broaden participation in the geosciences, engaging undergraduate students from traditionally underrepresented groups or from non-geoscience degree programs is a priority. The opportunity offers two funding tracks:

• Engaging students in the geosciences through extra-curricular experiences and training activities (GEOPATHS-EXTRA)
• Improving pathways into the geosciences through institutional collaborations and transfer (GEOPATHS-IMPACT)

Amount: $6,000,000 is available with grants ranging from $250,000-$500,000.

Eligibility: Universities and two- and four-year colleges accredited in, and having a campus located in, the United States.

Link: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=505169

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