Rivers and Cities: An Innovative Partnership Creating Opportunities for Undergraduates to Interpret Their Earth Home through Digital Lenses
The Rivers & Cities project partners East Los Angeles College (ELAC) with the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) to provide a well-crafted and resource-rich solution to the pressing educational, institutional, and individual student needs. The project engages community college and university students in the Earth system science approach to the study of physical geography, while developing in students the technology skills required to analyze and present NASA data. It motivates students through highly interactive exercises that build the teamwork they need to succeed in our world's increasingly global scientific community. It connects students to supportive peer networks, while inspiring students' continued academic achievement and career preparation in the sciences through genuine research internships. And it builds bridges between open-admissions institutions serving the poorest parts of the greater Los Angeles area and a highly selective, nationally ranked research university. It is over just such bridges that California's vibrant and diverse students will cross from minority-serving institutions to the research, teaching, and technical careers through which they will take up the great NASA tradition of understanding and protecting our home planet.
CONTACT: Dr. Robert West, Phone: 323-260-8115, Email: westr@elac.edu