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Universities serve as a hub for the advancement of water science and engineering knowledge and innovations. Communities outside of academia hold equally valid expertise on water and environmental topics. However, there is a lack of avenues for knowledge exchange between academia and non-academic communities including homeowners, industry professionals, policy makers, and K-12 students and teachers. Many universities and research centers attempt to enhance knowledge sharing by organizing broader impact outreach events such as lab tours, demonstrations, hands-on activities, and public presentations. This work studies water-focused students who we define to be students from all disciplines (engineering, biology, sociology, geography, planning, etc.) that study water resources, quality, treatment, and management. Anecdotally, we have seen that of a pool of approximately 100 water-focused students, only the same small subset participates in every event while over 70% of those invited never volunteer. Therefore, there is a need to assess why we see this occurrence. This study aims to survey undergraduate and graduate student water scholars’ motivations and barriers for participating in volunteer broader impact outreach events outside of their degree requirements. This study collected quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data were collected through Likert-scale type responses to motivating and hindering factors. Qualitative data were collected through written responses to questions on specific positive or negative student experiences and attitudes. Four main outreach trends emerged: 1) Students enjoy attending outreach events and find it helpful to themselves and to society; 2) Attending events leads students to want to participate in more; 3) Lack of time is by far the top hinderance; 4) Students are motivated by mentor support. Study findings suggest three possible steps to implementing a targeted strategy for broader impact student outreach that aligns with student desires at university research centers: 1) Choice of outreach events should emphasize the contribution to society; 2) Outreach recruitment should emphasize skills students will gain; 3) Faculty mentors should genuinely support their students’ outreach endeavors including finding relevant outreach opportunities. 

Early engagement in undergraduate research opportunities promotes improved critical thinking and scientific reasoning, increased academic performance, enhanced retention both within STEM majors and in college overall, and improved satisfaction with college. It is therefore critical to create pathways for early-stage college students to engage in undergraduate research. Transdisciplinary Grand Challenges programs at large public universities provide an opportunity to engage undergraduates in research that is directly tied to their community’s needs. The objective of this paper is to present the development and implementation of a science communication fellowship to engage early-stage undergraduate students in research. We created the Grand Challenge Water Science Communication Fellowship, in which students work with mentors (faculty, research scientists, graduate students) to create a communication project to educate the public on a water resources related issue that is currently being researched. The research used to produce the communication project can either be the student’s own or the research of their mentor. Students select their own communications venues (e.g., paintings, podcasts, videos, infographics) and work individually with their mentor and together as a cohort to develop and refine their individual projects. The projects are presented at the end of the semester-long fellowship program at the University’s Undergraduate Research Conference, which is open to the public. Participating students and mentors represent a wide variety of backgrounds, including biology, physics, environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, economics, environmental science, and geography. Several tangible benefits were seen for both students and mentors in the program’s first year. Students formed an active multidisciplinary cohort that created a sense of belonging to the university; most of the students are now working in the research lab of their mentor; and students from the prior year’s cohort and organizing and mentoring the next year’s cohort. Research mentors have obtained broader visibility of their research by using the produced communications pieces in grant proposals, research papers, presentations, websites, and other public avenues for knowledge sharing. In the second year of the program, we now aim to use qualitative and quantitative surveys to understand if participation in the program increases students’ self-efficacy and research identity. Survey questions ask students to evaluate aspects such as, how active their role was in planning the project, sense of responsibility for project progress, sense of belonging to a community of researchers, and intention to persist in a research experience. Results will be used to scale this opportunity and create similar communication fellowships for other Grand Challenges and disciplinary programs at the university.