Strategic Assessment: The School of Earth Sciences is home to research and teaching in a broad range of disciplines related to the Earth we all share, in areas such as energy and water resources, earthquakes and volcanoes, and local and global environmental change. We believe that these issues are relevant to all students at Stanford and to the larger public, and that an understanding of these issues should be an essential part of the superb education that Stanford provides. Many school faculty recognize this need and are frustrated by an inability to reach more students, both undergraduates and graduates, and majors and non-majors, yet we realize that it is our responsibility to take positive action to create these opportunities.

Strategy 1: Develop courses for and approaches to reach all Stanford undergraduates.
• promote Earth Sciences curricula to students outside the school, and package and market courses for
“I-Earth” (similar to I-Hum, Stanford’s Introduction to the Humanities Program)
• identify research and learning opportunities with the School of Education and other groups at Stanford

Strategy 2: Develop strong outreach programs to reach all undergraduates, and attract both majors and non-majors to our courses.
• develop a marketing strategy to describe what the School of Earth Sciences is about
• revise course descriptions in the Stanford Bulletin to make clear what is taught and why
• develop a “catcher course” for Earth sciences, or use Introduction to Earth Systems (ESys 10) more effectively to attract more undergraduates to the school
• participate in admit weekend events and other campus-wide activities

Strategy 3: Develop outreach activities to reach K-12 programs.
• establish outreach programs with local schools and use Earth sciences “ambassadors”—graduate students who can teach Earth sciences units
• develop Web resources for K-12 teachers
• leverage funding and activities in the Dean of Research office to further explore outreach opportunities
• formally establish an elementary school field-trip program, designed to support the standard California elementary education curriculum, which will bring elementary school children to campus for hands-on activities
Strategy 4: Work with other departments to develop minors or areas of concentration to complement other existing undergraduate majors (e.g., physics, math, chemistry, computer science)

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