EnvironMentors (Environmental & Earth Science)
EnvironMentors
In the Laboratory.
Welcome to EnvironMentors
EnvironMentors is a national college access program that prepares high school students from under-represented backgrounds for college degree programs in environmental and related science fields. We match minority high school students with college and university faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and science and environmental professionals, in one-to-one mentoring relationships. Working together, students and mentors develop rigorous environmental science research projects over the course of the academic year.
EnvironMentors is a collaborative effort of colleges and universities, our mentors, aspiring high school students, science teachers, government agencies, community organizations, foundations and businesses who generously support our work.
Initiated in Washington, DC in 1992, EnvironMentors now has Active Chapters at Alabama State University, Alabama A and M University, Colorado State University, North Carolina State University, and will be adding three new university-based chapters in the 2008-09 academic year. We invite you to explore our site to learn more about EnvironMentors and how you can be involved.
What EnvironMentors Does
Alexander Graham Bell Multicultural High School (Washington, DC) students on zoological park field trip. (Source: NCSE) EnvironMentors prepares under-represented high school students for college degree programs in environmental, natural resources, and other related science fields.
EnvironMentors became a part the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) in 2006 allowing expansion of the program and creation of new chapters at colleges and universities across the country.
NCSE's University Affiliate Program, an established formal network of over 150 colleges and universities, provides an ideal infrastructure to expand EnvironMentors' national presence and strengthen the program's college access pathway, and create opportunities in higher education. Over the coming years, NCSE will launch new EnvironMentors chapters in partnership with affiliate universities to extend the benefits of EnvironMentors to students from under-served communities across the United States. An over-arching goal of the EnvironMentors college access program is to increase the diversity of students in environmentally-related college degree programs and in the workforce of the rapidly developing “green economy.”
The DC Chapter of EnvironMentors has established a proven record of success in raising the interest level and preparedness of diverse high school students for science and environmental college degree programs. Nearly 2,000 DC high school students have participated in EnvironMentors. Ninety eight percent have graduated from high school, compared to the average DC graduation rate of 43%, and 95% have gone on to college, compared to the DC college acceptance rate of 12%. As the EnvironMentors program expands nationally, the flagship DC program will serve as a model chapter.
EnvironMentors matches high school students from our university-based chapters in one-to-one mentoring relationships. With the support of their mentor, students develop experimental science research projects on environmental topics borne of their own interest. Students who participate in EnvironMentors gain valuable research and writing experience that serves them in their future endeavors.
Each spring, EnvironMentors students present their projects to elementary school classes in their respective school districts and to a team of judges at each chapter's EnvironMentors Fair. The top three students from each chapter travel to Washington, DC to present their project at the National EnvironMentors Fair. The season concludes with the gala EnvironMentors Awards Ceremony at which students who have excelled in the program receive scholarships to college. A $10,000 scholarship is awarded each year to a deserving EnvironMentors student who has excelled in the program and who personally elects to pursue an environmentally-related college degree program. EnvironMentors' integrative approach to identifying pressing environmental issues through hands-on application of the scientific method supported by a mentor has proven beneficial for most all of our students and life changing for some.
For detailed, up-to-date information about Environmentors.
