Collaborative Research: Conference: GA6 Geosciences and Environmental Justice for Indigenous Communities

The 6th Geoscience Alliance (GA-6) conference builds on a successful series of national conferences aiming to broaden the participation of Native Americans in geoscience and environmental sciences. The first five Geoscience Alliance conferences brought together a total of more than 500 graduate, undergraduate, and K-12 students, educators, Elders, community members, and professionals representing 40 Tribes, Bands, and Native Villages. The GA-6 conference will take place in North Carolina and is expected to increase participation from the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, regions that have been underrepresented at prior Geoscience Alliance conferences. The conference theme, Geoscience and Environmental Justice in Indigenous Communities, considers the distributions of environmental benefits and burdens along with the environmental policies, practices, and power dynamics that influence these distributions. Noting that Indigenous communities regularly shoulder disproportionately large environmental burdens from pollution, resource extraction, and climate change, conference participants will learn about, share, and discuss some of the ways that Indigenous and western knowledges can be used to address these problems and promote environmental justice. By increasing the involvement of Native American communities underrepresented in geoscience and environmental science, the conference will help enhance human capacity in these fields at a national level. Despite growing recognition that Indigenous knowledge systems have much to offer the geoscience and environmental sciences, Indigenous peoples themselves are among the most underrepresented groups in careers and degree programs in these fields. This underrepresentation has implications for scientific research, science education, management, and other areas. The 6th Geoscience Alliance (GA-6) conference will help address this issue by building on a successful series of national conferences aimed at broadening the participation of Native Americans in geoscience and environmental sciences. The conference theme engages with Indigenous environmental justice, an area of academic research and a social movement that is both relevant to public policy and linked to scientific issues related to air and water quality, natural resource management, and climate change. In particular, the GA-6 conference will elevate Indigenous perspectives in environmental justice research, education, and engagement to spur ideas, dialog, and collaboration among participants and their networks. The three-day conference will include activities proven successful in previous Geoscience Alliance conferences: discussion circles, workshops, poster sessions, and field trips. The main objectives of the GA-6 conference are learning; networking and career progress; understanding; making it memorable; and growing the community. The conference will fulfill each of these objectives under the established and effective Geoscience Alliance principle that everyone teaches and everyone learns. The GA-6 conference will also serve to disseminate information to participants about opportunities such as Research Experience for Undergraduate programs, internships, and academic degree programs. A focus on networking at the conference will support all participants in developing a strong network of peers and collaborators. 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.