1. Best Practices for Internships and Research Experiences Encourage internships especially for students headed into the workforce and REUs for all students Research classes early in a student’s career are excellent means to involve them in research and internships late on Capstone research experience integrated into the curriculum Capacity issue with growing numbers of majors, need more buy in from administration and local industries Faculty members need to be compensated for REU and internship involvement Need a national internship clearinghouse

2. Curriculum Best Practices Easy entry into major (e.g. offering min-pet often, reducing prerequisites) Including research skills/problem based learning/big data early and often Including field experiences early and often Develop strong geoscience-based calculus curriculum syllabus and offerings Incorporate societal relevance in all Geoscience courses and informally Increased flexibility will help recruit a more diverse set of students, remember not every student goes to Geoscience graduate school!

3. Curriculum Best Practices Cont’d… Critical curriculum goals and core values should be couched in terms of higher-level skill sets Those core values may need to be explicitly defined by faculty, articulated to university administrations, departments, students, parents, and implemented in the curriculum Curricula frequently evaluated in terms of disciplines – opportunity to evolve assessment metrics?