The Community-driven Inclusive Excellence and Leadership Opportunities in the Geosciences (CIELO-G) project will form cohorts of graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and educators at all levels to transform the culture of the geoscience community by: 1) Supporting a diverse and multi-disciplinary team to address fundamental climate change and Earth system science problems, 2) Training and synergistic learning with local educators to create a modern geoscience learning ecosystem in a bi-national community, 3) Increasing both the number and success rate of students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds that become geoscience professionals, 4) Increasing awareness of the importance of geosciences and inspiring underserved communities and students, and 5) Improving graduate students’ and postdoctoral scholars’ training through evidence-based professional development covering both technical and soft skills. To achieve these goals, the project leaders adopt a collective impact approach that provides a foundation for innovative, robust research that incorporates community engagement. The collective impact (CI) model develops a network of community members, organizations, and institutions by advancing a common agenda, providing centralized support, promoting continuous communication, creating mutually reinforcing activities, and executing a shared measurement. Programmatically, the project leaders will create cohorts of six graduate students, six high school and community college educators, two postdoctoral fellows along with junior faculty, and six faculty research mentors, with integrated efforts for community research and engagement with five local non-government organizations.

Together with the local community, the project leaders will design and execute geoscience research projects that combine four essential elements: 1) a basic science question addressing fundamental climate change and Earth system science issues impacting the Paso del Norte Region (west Texas, southern New Mexico, and northern Mexico), 2) use-inspired research which results may lead to implementation of practical solutions for the community, 3) socially relevant outcomes driving substantial changes of awareness towards the importance of geosciences in the community, and 4) strong community engagement leading to a long-lasting and sustainable geoscience learning ecosystem in the region. The project leaders identify four initial research projects, recognizing that new projects may develop as CI is implemented: 1) Urgent challenges around water and agriculture sustainability in arid lands, 2) Exploring interactions between geologic structure and water pathways, including impacts on erosion, floods, landslides, and aquifer recharge, 3) Investigating intraplate earthquake hazards in West Texas and southern New Mexico, and 4) Understanding and mitigating increasing urban heat and dust. The projects will be designed to address key science challenges while reaching deep into the communities that they will impact in an organic way, allowing them to evolve in response to continuous community input.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.