Jennifer Sliko

Civil Engineering, Science

Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus

Jennifer Sliko is a Lecturer in Earth Sciences in the Civil Engineering Program at Penn State Harrisburg. Her research focus includes geoscience education and using geochemical proxies for paleoenvironmental reconstructions. Her recent projects include developing new ways to teach about climate change issues in general education classes and comparing how well students retain information in non-traditional classes (like online and flipped classes). She is also working on a project comparing environmental changes to evolutionary changes in late Ediacaran biota. Jenn completed her PhD (geoscience, paleoclimatology emphasis) in 2010 from the University of South Florida and her BS in Geology and Marine Science at Rider University in 2000. In her spare time, Jenn and her husband are enjoying showing the world to their daughter, Samantha, and teaching her how to identify rocks and fossils.

Workshop Participant, Webinar Participant, Website Contributor

Website Content Contributions

Course Modules (6), Activities (2), Essay (1), Conference Presentation (1), Other Contribution (1)

Course Modules (6)

Unit 2: Communicating Climate 1: The Science of Climate Change part of Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts
Using climate data, students develop a graph and present the results in a blog, emphasizing effective scientific communication. Students work individually or in teams to graph, describe, and explain the data sets ...

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Unit 1: Overview of Earth's Climate System part of Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts
Unit 1 serves as an introduction to Earth's climate system components. After exploring climate data, students are introduced to the natural processes responsible for global climate and how specific variables ...

Unit 5: Synthesis: Literary Representation of a Grand Societal Challenge part of Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts
In the final unit of the module, students will synthesize their understanding of climate science and modes of communication. Students are assigned to groups and given a climate change issue that they will use to ...

Unit 4: Read and Analyze a Short Story part of Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts
Building on the work they did in Unit 3, students will perform an "ecocritical" rhetorical reading (the theoretical lens for examining the way that literary texts engage with climate and climate issues) ...

Unit 3: Communicating Climate 2: Literary Representations of Climate Change part of Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts
After being introduced to scientific communication in Unit 2, students will continue by exploring different literary representations of climate change during this unit. Students will analyze various kinds of ...

Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts part of Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts
This module addresses both aspects of climate literacy: understanding of climate science through data analysis and interpretation, and understanding of literary tools and techniques through which climate science is ...

Activities (2)

Geologic Characterization of Your Property part of Integrate:Workshops and Webinars:Teaching About Earth Online Workshop:Activities
Students will look up an address (either of their choosing or instructor-provided) and assess the geologic characteristics and vulnerability of that location. Students will utilize datasets about geologic ...

Happyville Water Table Contour Map part of Integrate:Workshops and Webinars:Teaching About Earth Online Workshop:Activities
In this activity, students create and interpret a water table contour map. Students utilize groundwater well elevations and the depth to the water table at each well to determine the water table elevation at each ...

Essay (1)

Jennifer Sliko, Pennsylvania State University-Penn St. Harrisburg part of Integrate:Workshops and Webinars:Teaching About Earth Online Workshop:Essays
How do you manage student engagement and assessment in your online courses? Keeping students engaged with the instructor, each other, and the course materials can be a challenging aspect of teaching an online ...

Conference Presentation (1)

Cli-fi: Teaching climate change using literature part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2016:Program:Poster Sessions:Thursday
As part of the InTeGrate program (SERC) at Carleton College, we developed a two-week module utilizing cli-fi (climate science present in fictional literature) and related climate data. Given the interdisciplinary ...

Other Contribution (1)

Using GER Results in Course Design part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2016:Program:Morning Workshops:GER:Idea Papers
Jennifer Sliko, Penn State University An important step in designing or redesigning any class is to examine published geoscience education research for guidance on best practices in course design. This is ...

Communities

Teach the Earth
Map Your Hazards Interest Group
Integrate/GETSI 2023 Survey
Earth Educators' Rendezvous 2016

Workshop Participant (4 workshops)

ITG 2017 Online Teaching Workshop
May 2017 EER 2016 GeoNeeds
July 2016 GeoEd Research workshop
July 2016

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Webinar Participant

ITG Interdisciplinary Teaching 2016 Webinar
March 2016 Presenter