During the spring \u201819 semester I was the student liaison and project coordinator for a video series used in this year\u2019s (\u201919-\u201920) Texas OnRamps geoscience course, entitled Earth, Wind, and Fire (<\/u>EWF)<\/u>. I was drawn to work at OnRamps because of their mission to improve college enrollment in under-represented groups and how the online course format made the study of Earth Science more accessible to teachers and students in high schools across the state of Texas. My first exposure to Texas OnRamps was working as a grader for essays, sketches, and labs in the EWF course, but I have enjoyed working in a flexible role. Being a project coordinator was a fun and interactive learning experience for me as I wrote video scripts, worked with the tech gurus at UT Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services (LAITS), and (often frantically) coordinated the schedules of JSG* faculty, students, alumni, and OnRamps staff to fit the available video recording sessions at the LAITS studio on campus!<\/p>\n
Experience College Before College<\/u><\/p>\n
Nationwide, over half of high school graduates never complete a college degree+<\/sup>. Under the umbrella of UT\u2019s Office of Strategy and Policy,\u00a0Texas OnRamps<\/a> is a dual-enrollment high school course program with a curriculum designed to expose students from all socio-economic backgrounds to the academic expectations of higher education institutions. Other goals of the program are to increase the number and diversity of Texas high school students who enroll, stay in, and graduate from four-year institutions, all while setting them up for success in future careers that would have been out of their reach without a college degree. According to the 2017-2018 published data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a>+<\/sup> and the U.S. Department of Education<\/a>+<\/sup>,\u00a0 only ~40% of U.S. high school graduates complete bachelor\u2019s degrees. Texas OnRamps works to increase this percentage in Texas high school graduates by providing the opportunity to take courses in high school that result in college credit here at UT-Austin or at Texas Tech University. As of January 2020, there are over 35,000 Texas high school students dual-enrolled through OnRamps<\/a>.<\/p>\n OnRamps Geoscience: Earth, Wind, and Fire<\/u><\/p>\n In addition to coursework in their high school Earth Science (or equivalent) curriculum, students enrolled in the OnRamps EWF course participate in labs, reading and writing assignments, and exams that are mediated through the online Canvas learning management platform. Upon successful completion, these students earn UT credit for JSG\u2019s GEOL 302E, an introductory geology course with the same name aimed at non-majors and taught by Dr. Joel Johnson (DGS*). His philosophy is that the course is about \u201cgeoscience literacy\u2014what every educated person should understand about the functioning of Earth and human environments.\u201d<\/p>\n Perspectives in Geoscience Video Series<\/u><\/p>\n I worked closely with Alison Mote, the Geoscience Course Manager at Texas OnRamps, to create a video series aimed at highlighting the different types of research and backgrounds of geoscientists without the jargon inherent in scientific writing or science-focused blogs. Each video in the six-part series centers on a JSG-affiliated researcher (or two) whose work aligns with a unit of the year-long EWF course. While the \u201cpilot\u201d video includes myself (always hard to see and hear yourself!), enjoy watching these short videos of JSG scientists explaining their research in plain-language!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Unit 1\u2014Plate Tectonics:<\/span><\/p>\n Megan Flansburg (PhD \u201922) and Dr. Tomas Capaldi (PhD \u201919)<\/p>\n