In the Community: Rocking Out
Photo: Kitty Cahalan
by Sabrina Pirzada
In 2020, Caltech graduate students launched the Caltech GPS Outreach GO-Outdoors Program, which connects students, postdocs, and faculty members in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences with local K–12 teachers. The program aims to increase exposure and access to geosciences fields through curated lesson plans, classroom visits, and, most importantly, field trips (about eight per year), during which elementary, middle, and high school students have the opportunity to see what they are learning about up close.
The more than three dozen Caltech members of GO-Outdoors also provide teachers and administrators with additional educational resources for their classrooms. In its more than two years, the GO-Outdoors program has reached nearly 250 students across eight Pasadena-area schools and is continuing to grow.
“The outdoor experience for the kids enabled them to visually see and get a deeper conceptual understanding of real-life applications in their own backyard,” says Yolanda Muñoz, a teacher at Sierra Madre Elementary School. Muñoz’s third- and fourth-grade students learned about landslides and debris flow through a field trip to Bailey Canyon Wilderness Park in Sierra Madre to look at debris catchments. This built on an earlier class visit in which Caltech volunteers taught the students how to construct their own miniature debris flows with water and sand. The children then performed tests to see how much water it took to knock over plastic dinosaurs.
“During outreach trips, I always feel incredibly energized from the students’ excitement for engaging in science and being in the outdoors.”
Last year, students from Pasadena Unified, Alhambra Unified, and San Gabriel Unified school districts participated in a field trip to the San Gabriel Mountains, where they developed a real-world understanding of seismic faults. “It was amazing,” says Maia Dimas, a Pasadena Unified high school student, who notes the field trip enriched her understanding of geology and seismology.
“I loved walking around and trying to find faults, discussing how the faults worked, and how seismologists map out faults and geography.”
Shaelyn Silverman (MS ’21), a graduate student in geobiology and GO-Outdoors co-founder, says the program is tailored to meet the expressed needs of the teachers. “Our activities always draw upon evidence-based strategies for effective student learning,” she explains. “During outreach trips, I always feel incredibly energized from the students’ excitement for engaging in science and being in the outdoors.”
The Caltech team also purposefully structured GO-Outdoors so it can continue in perpetuity, says Claire Bucholz, a Caltech assistant professor of geology and GO-Outdoors advisor. “It took some very conscientious efforts on their part to design the leadership roles and mentoring structure so that, even with the cycle of graduate students joining and leaving Caltech, there will always be a core group who can lead the endeavor,” she says.
Caltech research technician and GO-Outdoors volunteer Katie Ann Huy says the program means a lot to her since she came from an underrepresented background where access to science education was scarce. “Joining GO-Outdoors has given me the opportunity to give back to communities like those I was brought up in and find belonging within the division,” she says. “I believe GO-Outdoors and outreach groups like it can allow underrepresented students to feel supported in their identity and their desire to give back to their communities.”
Juliet Ryan-Davis (MS ’20), a graduate student in geology and GO-Outdoors co-founder, says she is grateful that programs like this one are valued by the Institute community. “The fact that Caltech supports this program just reinforces what I strongly believe: that science and society are inseparable no matter what.”