We developed All-ABOARD (Alliance Building Offshore to Achieve Resilience and Diversity) to meet the ever-increasing needs of cultivating a diverse geoscience workforce. All-ABOARD incorporates the Be the Messenger theoretical framework in all programmatic aspects to encourage participants to think about their own identities, positionalities, and privileges. Drawing from US-based institutions, we recruited four teams of four to five members who spanned a spectrum of positionality and career stages. To evaluate the efficacy of the program, we collected both quantitative and qualitative data at different intervals to measure changes in participants’ understanding and perception of identity, culture, respect, and diversity. The year-long core programming included regular webinars via Zoom and an in-person retreat. We found that immersive experiences and intergenerational teams led to the cultivation of a strong identity as a DEI-champion, enhanced group cohesion, and promoted feelings of resilience among participants. Our participants reported they felt most accountable to themselves and their teams, and that learning was accelerated by bringing together teams from multiple institutions to collaborate across intergenerational boundaries. Our program provides a model for training DEI-champions in geoscience who can advance strategic objectives in their home environments and demonstrates how frameworks from the social sciences can be effectively leveraged to transform geoscience.
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Introduction to the Special Issue on Building Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Ocean SciencesKappel, Ellen (Ed.)
In his inaugural “The Oceanography Classroom” column for Oceanography in 2000, Dean McManus noted: “A particular challenge for higher education is to include more members of underrepresented groups in the study of the ocean. Fifteen years from now, 40% of the traditional undergraduate-age population will consist of these underrepresented groups, but today the ocean sciences have the lowest participation by underrepresented groups of any science” (McManus, 2000). Why should we care about this lack of diversity in the ocean sciences? As a recent US National Science Foundation report puts it, “A diverse workforce provides the potential for innovation by leveraging different backgrounds, experiences, and points of view. Innovation and creativity, along with technical skills relying on expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), contribute to a robust STEM enterprise” (NSF, 2023a). To put it more succinctly, “diversity is not distinct from enhancing overall quality—it is integral to achieving it” (Gibbs, 2014). Having a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workforce is not only a valuable objective and moral imperative, it is essential for fulfilling future workforce needs.
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Across the United States, there is increasing concern about the poor performance of American students in science and our country’s position as a world leader in innovation (National Science Board, 2022). Furthermore, young people are inequitably prepared to fulfill our nation's workforce needs as educational resources and achievement disparities are magnified in youth from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds who live in poverty (National Science Board, 2022). Science test scores for students of color who reside in low socioeconomic status communities lag far behind those of Caucasian students and students from more affluent areas (Irwin et al., 2022). These students are also less likely to pursue the higher education necessary for science- and technology-based careers (Fry et al., 2021). As a result, the United States’ scientific workforce does not reflect the population of the nation as a whole; for example, Hispanic individuals represent 18.9% of the US population, but only 8% of jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields (Fry et al., 2021). The Ocean Discovery Institute, a 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1999 to address this problem. Here, we describe Ocean Discovery’s unique model for empowering underrepresented students. It includes (1) embedding students within the community served, (2) reaching all students in a single cluster of schools (a “school-shed”), and (3) a program structure that emphasizes science identity (“belief”) and reinforces it through intentional mentorship.
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In the Southern California desert, the Salton Sea is the cause of a local socioenvironmental crisis reflective of various environmental injustices. Today’s Salton Sea is fed primarily through agricultural water run-off and effluent discharge. Over 23% of the Latinx and Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian identifying residents live below the poverty line in the two zip codes north of the sea (US Census Bureau, 2021). Persistent droughts and inequitable policies have accelerated the sea’s evaporation, exacerbating environmental health problems such as poor air quality and respiratory illnesses like asthma (Farzan et al., 2019). Since 2010, nonprofit organizations such as Alianza Coachella Valley (hereafter referred to as Alianza) have been addressing these issues and campaigning for economic and environmental justice in the Eastern Coachella Valley (ECV). Prior to this work, no reliable and continuous source of water quality information was easily accessible to local communities. Most recently, Alianza championed a community science initiative with the goal of establishing ongoing environmental monitoring, research, and advocacy. Through this initiative, community members formed the Salton Sea Environmental Time Series (SSET) in 2021 with support from the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU’s) Thriving Earth Exchange program. This collaboration, along with a variety of other institutions, has fostered diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within scientific academia for underrepresented ECV scholars and can serve as a blueprint for future initiatives.
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There have been many efforts to broaden participation and diversity in the geosciences with varying degrees of success. The goal of the National Science Foundation-funded GeoScholar Program in the School of the Earth, Ocean & Environment (SEOE) at the University of South Carolina was to increase geoscience exposure and the number of geoscience undergraduate majors (environmental, geological, and marine sciences) from low-income, minority, and first-generation college backgrounds.
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Living Marine Resources Cooperative Science Center (LMRCSC) was established in 2001 as a multi-institutional collaborative program with the goal of preparing a diverse future STEM workforce in marine and fisheries sciences. Using best practices for recruiting, mentoring, and training students, the Center has had a significant impact on the number of individuals from underrepresented groups earning degrees in NOAA-related sciences. From 2001 to 2022, the LMRCSC recruited and trained 1,092 students (516 BS, 241 MS, 89 PhD, and 246 non-degree students), and graduated 630 (401 BS/BA, 173 MS/MA, 56 PhD) students. About 77% of the graduates belong to underrepresented groups. Of the LMRCSC graduates, 41 work for NOAA or NOAA contractors. Since 2016, 67 graduate students have taken part in internships at NOAA Laboratories across the United States. Institutional capacities built using NOAA funds have enabled Historically Black Colleges and Universities collaborating with the Center to leverage funds to develop several programs, including a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates site in marine and estuarine science. The NOAA LMRCSC has become a model collaborative educational partnership that should be replicated elsewhere to enhance diversity in STEM disciplines, particularly the geosciences.
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Pursuing an academic career in marine science requires individuals to acquire a range of skills that can be applied across different contexts, including experimental or computational skills, policy engagement, teaching, and seagoing fieldwork. The tendency to advertise careers in marine science with imagery of research expeditions leads fieldwork to be perceived as a requirement for a career in marine science, with this experience supposedly an indicator of competitiveness in this discipline. Historically, those participating in remote fieldwork over extended periods of time were perceived as “adventurous explorers, with a strong bias towards western, able-bodied men” (Nash et al., 2019). Imagery reinforcing such notions for marine scientists fail to recognize that this perception can be discouraging to individuals from other backgrounds who may be excluded from the discipline by a range of real and perceived participatory barriers. Such exclusionary factors include: caring responsibilities, physical mobility, challenging social environments, isolating and physically uncomfortable working environments, mental health challenges and access to opportunity (Giles et al., 2020). Such barriers disproportionately affect diverse, underrepresented, and marginalized groups, who may therefore struggle to identify with marine science as a potential discipline in which to pursue a successful career.
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Understanding the history of how we studied our ocean in the past and how we study it now will help us develop approaches to make future oceanographic knowledge production more diverse, accessible, and inclusive. The motto of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) is, “The ocean we need for the future we want” (Singh et al., 2021). The Ocean Decade gives the ocean sciences community an opportunity to change the way it conducts research, to use ocean science to support sustainable development, and to energize the ocean sciences for future generations. With these goals in mind, we developed an introductory level, student-led graduate seminar that builds on the Ocean Decade framework. A research cruise involving seminar participants followed the seminar sessions. Here, we discuss how we conducted the seminar and highlight directions that are needed to energize future generations of ocean leaders and make ocean science more equitable, inclusive, and accessible.
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Cuker, Ben ; Garza, Corey ; Gibson, Deidre ; Martinez, Catalina ; Todd, Wendy ; Xu, Cassie (Ed.)
Welcome to the online supplement to the special issue of Oceanography magazine on Building Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Ocean Sciences. In this supplement, we present a series of one-page autobiographical sketches written by ocean scientists from diverse backgrounds. In these sketches we learn what the scientists do, the challenges they have faced, and what they find rewarding about their work. By including these personal journeys, the autobiographical sketches complement the many articles in the special issue that describe programs that focus on building diversity, equity, and inclusion in the ocean sciences and the lessons the leaders of those programs have learned as they have attempted to address structural and cultural obstacles encountered by underrepresented and marginalized scholars.
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As the organization managing the scientific mandate of the Canadian research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen, Amundsen Science aims to create a safe and respectful research environment for every expedition participant aboard the vessel and to improve our relations with stake- and rightsholders of the Canadian North. Our current focus is on two primary equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) objectives specific to Arctic oceanographic expeditions: (1) to make the confined and remote workplace of the ship a mentally, emotionally, and physically secure environment, and (2) to integrate Indigenous-led research and to bring awareness of local (Inuit) culture during the expeditions.