Help Get Input From Your Students

One of the primary goals of InTeGrate is to develop curricula that will dramatically increase Earth literacy of all undergraduate students. In order to achieve that goal, we are developing curricular materials that promote learning about Earth in the context of societal issues, which we believe provides motivation and context for that learning.

As we develop these materials, we want to hear from students about the issues that are important to them. What is a compelling question related to sustainability and the Earth for an economics major? For a pre-service elementary teacher? For a biologist? What classroom experiences have been most meaningful for these students in their geoscience classes and their programs in general? What skills and knowledge will help them find a place in a workforce increasingly focused on sustainability and societal issues?

We need your help getting input from the broadest possible range of students.

Directions

We hope to make this as easy for you as possible, while still getting plenty of input from students. Here's what we are looking for:

  1. Download this document (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 461kB Feb10 14), which contains all of these directions.
  2. Bring a group or groups of students together however you can. You can take a few minutes of class time, go to a club meeting, sit down with students at lunch, or whatever works best for you. Keep in mind that we are looking for input from diverse students: students in all majors, undergraduate and graduate, geoscience and non-geoscience.
  3. Record some demographic data about who is in your group. We don't need names or email addresses, but we're interested in the number of students, their majors or disciplines, and what kind of degree program they are in. The demographic questions are listed in the word document (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 461kB Feb10 14) and in the upload form.
  4. Give a brief overview of InTeGrate. If you are in a classroom, feel free to show the website. But that's not necessary – we've written out a brief introduction (on the second page of the document you downloaded) that you can give to get the conversation going.
  5. Ask the questions we've outlined (also listed in the document (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 461kB Feb10 14) you downloaded) and take notes on what you hear. We've separated these according to discipline: geoscience students and non-geoscience students. We realize that you might be talking to a mixed group, and that's fine – you can pull questions from both sets as you go.
  6. You can take notes directly in the document (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 461kB Feb10 14), or take them by hand and summarize them in the word document later. You might consider asking one of the students or a colleague to take notes while you lead the conversation, since it can be hard to do both at the same time.
  7. Upload their input and the demographic data you collected to the website. Feel free to upload additional documentation, such as photographs or graphics, that supplement their input.