The Geosciences Institute for Research and Education (GRI) is a partnership including the University of Michigan-Dearborn, the Detroit Public Schools, and local corporations to extend research and learning opportunities in the geosciences to underrepresented groups within the Detroit metropolitan area. The goal of the program is to build awareness of the geosciences and to create an enthusiastic learning experience designed to motivate students to stay in school and to consider science, particularly the geosciences as a possible career. Our goal is to reverse the current trend where over 40% of DPS students drop out of school and only 21% graduate from high school in four years. Our method is to involve middle school students early in their educational career with their teachers directly in ongoing, community-based research projects in which we demonstrate how the geosciences can be used as a tool to solve locally and socially relevant environmental problems that are also internationally important.

The main GRI activities consist of spring and summer institutes that will expose approximately 50 middle school and high school students and their families and about 20 teachers each year to the geosciences through inquiry-based, watershed-related environmental projects in southeast Michigan. The students, parents, and teachers are mentored both during and following the institute in order to encourage students to stay in school and attend college. The teachers, who typically do not have degrees in geology, are encouraged to return to school to take more geology courses in order to increase their competency as stipulated by the No Child Left Behind Act, but more importantly, to increase their excitement and enthusiasm for the geosciences.