The Sense of belonging in undergraduate field education project - led by Kari O’Connell (STEM Research Center at OSU), Stephanie Shaulskiy (University of Michigan Biological Station), Alison Jolley (University of Waikato in New Zealand), and Lucas Hill (evaluator, University of Wisconsin-Madison) - will fill a critical hole in the scholarship of STEM teaching and learning by advancing understanding of how student sense of belonging develops in undergraduate learning experiences outside of the traditional classroom. Our project will advance research and practice related to the development of students’ sense of belonging during residential undergraduate field courses, a pivotal learning experience in STEM disciplines such as ecology, geology, and geography. Belonging plays an important role in students’ mental health and well-being, academic achievement and motivation, and institution-level retention, and is pivotal for the persistence of students underrepresented in STEM disciplines. The overarching goal of our project is to build the capacity of geosciences and biology faculty to support the development of students’ sense of belonging and thus improve the inclusivity of courses that are a critical pathway in the engagement and learning of thousands of undergraduate students in field-based STEM disciplines.