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We used the social‐cognitive choice model (Lent et al., 2018) as a framework for investigating academic and career choice in the domain of geoscience for male and female students. In addition, we explored the role of perceived connection to instructors and transformative experience as additional factors in the social‐cognitive choice model. A total of 525 individuals from six geoscience departments participated. We conducted three path models with confidence in geoscience among majors (Model 1), intent to major in geoscience among non‐majors (Model 2), and intent to pursue a career in geoscience (Model 3) as outcome variables. Overall, the baseline social‐cognitive choice model explained a moderate amount of variance with variation by model and gender. Students' interest in and identification with geoscience was an important direct predictor of outcomes in all three models. Adding connection to instructor to the baseline model significantly increased the model fit and contributed to the amount of variance explained in Models 2 and 3, but not Model 1. Further, connection to instructor was found to mediate the relation between interest/identity and outcomes as well as directly predict outcomes in Models 2 and 3. These results held for male and female students. Adding transformative experience to the baseline plus connection to instructor model further increased the model fit and contributed to the amount of variance explained for female student in Models 2 and 3, but not for Model 1 and not for male students. Further, transformative experience was found to mediate the relation between interest/identity and outcomes as well as directly predict outcomes in all three models, but only for female students. These results suggest instructors may strengthen geoscience pathways by developing students' interest in geoscience, establishing connections with students, and, for female students, fostering transformative experiences.

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Climate change is a critical environmental issue and is a recommended core concept in the Ecological Society of America's 4-Dimensional Ecology Education framework. Limited work describes K-12 students' conceptions of the biotic impacts of climate change, yet research is lacking to explore undergraduate students' conceptions on this topic. Our goal was to describe undergraduate student conceptions of the biotic outcomes of climate change, and characterize how these student conceptions of animal responses to climate change align with accepted scientific ideas. We used an interpretive qualitative research design and interviewed 13 undergraduate students who were enrolled in either an introductory biology or general ecology course. Through two independent codings of the same dataset, we separately addressed each of our research goals. Prior to this study, we identified three general biotic outcomes from climate change, which were confirmed by outside experts: changes to an animal's Growth and Survival, their Reproduction, or their Distribution. Our student interviewees as a whole mentioned all three of these outcomes, and most individuals mentioned all three in their responses. Additionally, we found that most student ideas were aligned with Scientific conceptions, while a third of student ideas contained some scientific conceptions but were incomplete. Only a small percent of conceptions voiced in our sample were identified as alternative conceptions that did not align with accepted scientific ideas. These findings are important for educators who teach climate change, as they suggest that undergraduate students come to our classes with productive resources; however, our findings also identify concepts where students may struggle or enter classrooms with a more incomplete understanding.

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