Working Group #11
NSF Future of Undergraduate Geoscience Education
01/10/14
Facilitator: Kristen St. John
Scribe: Owen Anfinson
Topic 1: Curriculum
Content, Competency, and SkillsGeologists and Geographers, most don’t arrive with geoscience as their primary
goal. Get a broad education out to society. Design classes to produce students able
to have a broad knowledge of the geoscientists in the general public.
Intro classes applicable to multiple populations –future majors, future non-majors,
specialized (future teachers), only science class they may ever take, people from
other stem courses, people with different into classes.
Introductory level courses discussionAbility to listen, ability to think scientifically. A course Kristen teaches for a single
credit (geo-writing). Trying to help them learn communication skills, writing,
finding the right literature, how to read a scientific paper, how to write notes in the
margins, have to write their own abstracts, resumes (cvs).
Are institutions actually rigorous (definition of rigorous is unpleasant)- Basic Math,
understanding scientific notation, physics, chemistry, calculus….can they use it in a
course once they have the fundamentals? Biology is not usually a requirement.
Develop a new course that is quantitative analysis in geoscience…focused on
geoscience but still gives them the basic skills in math.
Is it worth trying to cater to all the populations in introductory level courses? Are
you really trying to teach them a skill or just get them interested? Feeling seems to
be that they would like the intro level courses to be more interest based instead of
content based. Look at three rocks- ig, sed and meta or should we be asking the
questions of how was it formed? why is that important?
Some of you will be majors, some of you will be voters. I know you will not all take
this home, but you will know how to find the information if you wish to know at a
later date.
Think for themselves to challenge what they are taught. Defining what we do as
critical thinking. Not going to always remember the concept, but would like them
remember what it is related to (Milankovich Cycles and that they are related to
climate change…but not the details).
A consensus that the three major rock types are not the fundamentals of geology
anymore. We don’t do experimentation at the introductory level like chemistry and
physics does?
Should we have a single introductory course?
If you ask your students what were the most important things they learned from
your introductory level course, what do they say? What do you want them to say?
Do they ever come back with anything about content? The idea of a concept?
Purpose of an introductory level course. Introduce observation, introduce scientific
method,
We like to emphasize big picture as we are older, but students are better with at
details. We get better at big picture when you’re older because you have a lot more
in your head to work with
Effective in Joe’s course. Read a passage of text or a documentary and define the
argument and what is the evidence presented, how do you evaluate the evidence
high vs low quality evidence.
Geoscientific thinking. Observational vs quantitative. Instead of here is another
fact, here is a fact, than introduce the humanities, how do we understand what a fact
is? Here is some basic knowledge, but the upper level courses do need a basic
understanding of the geoscientific concepts.
Should the introductory course be used as scaffolding for the rest of the geoscience
courses? Good or bad idea?
Climate change debate- What happens if we take away all the CO2? Get a debate
going. Students raise the questions. Concerns that debate fortifies their initial
position. So debate may not be the best word to use.
Vision and Change (learning from Biology)Core Concepts for Biology- Evolution, Structure and Function, Flow of Change,
Living systems...what should our core concepts be.
Seniors vs Freshman. Repeat the question. Recast the question so all the students
can feel comfortable asking a question and start trying to use scientific reasoning.
Needed from a first year course. How the geoscience career has evolved.
PowerPoint from Intro Level Course Discussion
Recognition that intro level geoscience courses have multiple purposes:
Recruit majors. Marketing the major and engaging new students. Recruiting majors
to increase the diversity of the major. Foundational skills needed for the general
population. K-12 teacher preparation.
Challenges:
Different needs and goals of the student population. They have different levels of
preparation and have different attitudes. Hard to teach well, large classes with a
diverse population
Recommendations:
Put emphasis on evaluation of evidence, observational skills, quantitative skills,
critical thinking, nature of science (geoscience thinking), demonstrating relevance of
geosciences.
Cease to rely on intro course as a foundation for major, instead use it as a recruiting
tool.
Taught by the most capable instructors
List of learning outcomes for the major(Powerpoint list made from this list- debated on these topics for a long time)
Identification of Earth Materials
Understanding the Evolution of Life
Energy Driving the Cycling of Matter/ the flow of energy drives the cycling of matter
Driving Processes
Different Scales of Time
Spatial Data, Maps, Visualization, Thinking 3D, Create Maps as well
Basic System Concepts- Stock, Flow, Feedback
How to deal with Scientific Uncertainty
The Nature of Science
Ability to Evaluate Evidence/ Quality of Evidence
Have a Scientific Background but Communicate it Effectively to the Public
Geologic Perspective of Climate Change
Physical and chemical processes are unchanging
How do we know what we know and how do we demonstrate it to the public?
The physical principles determine how to read the landscape
Modeling as a skill set. How to use models and critique models?
Know how to use statistics for quantitative analysis
Statistics as a tool to evaluate patterns in data sets
How to communicate to other audiences/ non scientific.
Why earth hazards happen? Evaluate a location.
How geoscientists understand the how resources are produced and used
How do geoscientists use evidence to build and argument?
What makes a good question?
PowerPoint for Learning Outcomes Necessary for a Geoscience Major
Conceptual Resources and relation to earth processes (including water)
 Hazards and relation to Earth Processes
 Earth Materials and Structure
 Energy Flow driving the cycling of Matter
 The geoscience perspectives on climate change
 Earth as a dynamic and complex system
 The relationship between landscape and process
 Origin and Evolution of Life and Earth
 The nature and history of scientific inquiry in the geosciences
Skills Thinking across different scales of time
 Analyzing and interpreting data in different temporal and spatial scales
 Systems concepts (e.g. feedbacks)
 Effective communication to scientific and non-sci audiences
 Recognizing and working with scientific uncertainty
 Making inferences about Earth processes from observations of the natural
world and experimentation and modeling
 Placing interpretations in the context of space and time
 Identifying arguments and evaluating evidence and lines of inquiry
 Working effectively in interdisciplinary teams
 Quantitative reasoning