COMMUNITY OUTREACH

Project: Educating the Next Generation of Environmental Scientists Through a High School Research Experience

Project Lead: Steven Goldsmith, PhD, associate Professor, Geography and the Environment

Urban communities often suffer the greatest damage from poor water, air and soil quality. Geoscience programs, including the environmental sciences, are the foundation for jobs tasked with remedying these problems.

This partnership with Walter B. Saul High School in Philadelphia uses an immersive, locally based research experience in urban environmental geochemistry to broaden a pathway to the geosciences for Philadephia students. Students are engaged through both school-based active learning modules and a solutions-based summer research experience carried out alongside Villanova undergraduate students.

This partnership with Walter B. Saul High School in Philadelphia uses an immersive, locally based, culturally responsive research experience in urban environmental geochemistry, through an environmental justice lens, to broaden a pathway to the geosciences for underrepresented minoritized students. Students are engaged through both school-based active learning modules and a solutions-based summer research experience carried out alongside Villanova undergraduate students.