Courses and Materials

Part of the InTeGrate University Texas El Paso Program Model

Courses and teaching materials adopted, adapted, or developed by the project.

Courses

Principles of Earth Science (Department of Geological Sciences)

Institution: EPCC
Instructor(s): Joshua Villalobos, Russell Smith and Brenda Barnes
Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Fall 2015, Spring 2016 (on-line and face to face)
Course Level: Introductory

Example Syllabi: Villalobos Syllabus (Microsoft Word 149kB Dec14 15); Barnes syllabus GEOL 1302 (Acrobat (PDF) 61kB Mar26 16)

Villalobos used materials from the Environmental Justice and Freshwater Resources, Living on the Edge, Mineral Resources and Geoscience Methods modules (see Villalobos syllabus). He used the activities "as is" and used the same materials both semesters.

Barnes used materials from the Mineral Resources and Climate of Change. Barnes continues to use the materials in her classes (see Barnes syllabus). She used the materials "as is." Barnes' teaching log for Spring 2015 (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 16kB Mar26 16) outlines how she used the materials.

Smith used material from Climate of Change module. Smith added some extra on-line resources for students on El Nino.

Environmental Geology (Department of Geological Sciences)

Institution: EPCC
Instructor: Brenda Barnes
Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Fall 2015, Spring 2016 (on-line and face to face sessions)
Course Level: Introductory
Example Syllabus: Barnes syllabus GEOL 1305 (Acrobat (PDF) 57kB Mar26 16)

Barnes used activities from Environmental Justice and Freshwater Resources (Love Canal, Ogallala Aquifer units), Climate of Change (unit 1), Human's Dependence on Earth's Mineral Resources (unit 1). She only modified materials to make them suitable for on-line assignments.

Historical Geology (Department of Geological Sciences)

Institution: EPCC and UTEP
Instructor: Joshua Villalobos (EPCC), Adriana Perez (EPCC and UTEP)
Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016 (on-line and face-to-face sessions)
Course Level: Introductory

Example Syllabus: Perez syllabus (Acrobat (PDF) 238kB Mar28 16)

Perez used all units of Climate of Change module. She only modified materials to make them suitable for on-line use. Villalobos used unit 1 of the Climate of Change module.

Introduction to Environmental Science (Department of Geological Sciences)

Institution: UTEP
Instructor: Diane Doser, Elizabeth Walsh, Brenda Barnes, Maryam Zarei
Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016 (all face to face sessions)
Course Level: Introductory
Example syllabi: Doser Syllabus (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 24kB Dec14 15); Barnes Syllabus (Acrobat (PDF) 33kB Mar26 16)

In Fall 2013, Doser used all 6 units of the Climate of Change module. In Spring 2014, she used unit 3 of the Climate of Change module when she taught as a substitute for Walsh's course. In Fall 2014, she used units 1-4 of the Climate of Change module, units 1 and 2 of the Humans' Dependence on Earth's Resources module, and units 1-3, 5 and 6 from the Environmental Justice and Freshwater Resources module. In Fall 2015 she added unit 1 from the "A Growing Concern" module and took out unit 4 of the Climate of Change module. She combined parts of units 2 and 3 together from the Environmental Justice module and took out the Google Earth components from 2, 3 and 5. She modified the reading from unit 1 of Climate of Change to shorten it and include less difficult vocabulary. She uses "table walks" rather than gallery walks for unit 1 of Climate of Change (large class size makes gallery walk difficult). She also shortened the Growing Concern module and added additional material to the day's activity on calculating the land and water footprint of a typical breakfast. Doser's modifications are discussed in her teaching logs:

Barnes used activities in Spring 2015 as described in her teaching log (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 14kB Mar26 16)

Zarei is using unit 6 of the Environmental Justice and Freshwater Resources module in Spring 2016.

Physical Geology (Department of Geological Sciences)

Institution: UTEP
Instructor: Adriana Perez, Joel Gilbert, Joshua Villalobos
Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Fall 2015, Spring 2016 (on-line and face to face)
Course Level: Introductory
Example Syllabus: Perez's Physical Geology syllabus (Acrobat (PDF) 574kB Mar28 16)

Gilbert used activity 2 from Humans' Dependence on Earth's Mineral Resources in Fall 2015. He has not taught a course this semester.

Villalobos used activities from the Environmental Justice and Freshwater Resources Unit including unit 1, unit 5 and unit 6. He has not changed the usage over time.

Perez used activities from the Environmental Justice and Freshwater Resources Unit including unit 1, unit 2, unit 5 and unit 6. She has not change the usage over time.

Fundamentals of Earth Science (Department of Geological Sciences)

Institution: UTEP
Instructor: Laura Serpa
Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Fall 2015 (hybrid course)
Course Level: Graduate for MA in Science Teaching program
Syllabus: Serpa syllabus (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 18kB Mar28 16)

Serpa used unit 1 of Human's Dependence on Earth's Mineral Resources and Unit 1 of Climate of Change

Blue Planet (Department of Geological Sciences)

Institution: UTEP
Instructor: Lixin Jin, Lin Ma
Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016 (face to face)
Course Level: Introductory
Syllabus: Jin syllabus (Acrobat (PDF) 453kB Mar28 16)

Ma used unit 1 of Climate of Change in Fall 2014, he added unit 2 of Climate of Change in Fall 2015. Jin used unit 1 of Climate of Change in Spring 2015 and 2016.

Geological Engineering (Departments of Geological Sciences and Civil Engineering)

Institution: UTEP
Instructor: Diane Doser, Musa Hussein
Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016 (face to face)
Course Level: Upper Division
Syllabus: Doser GEOL 3321 syllabus (Microsoft Word 49kB Mar28 16)

In 2014 Doser used units 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 from Human's Dependence on Earth's Mineral Resources. She modified these activities (see her Spring 2014 CE 3325 teaching log (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 27kB Mar26 16)) for a 50 minute time period. In 2015, she added the Ogallala aquifer unit from the Environmental Justice and Freshwater Resources module (see Spring 2015 teaching log (Microsoft Word 32kB Mar26 16)).

Hussein is using the same materials developed by Doser for Spring 2016. This will allow us to compare student outcomes for two separate instructors using the same materials.

Use of Materials in Laboratories

Physical Geology Laboratory (Department of Geological Sciences)

Institution: UTEP

Instructors: Sarah Olivas, Anna Mwangi, Juan Ochoa, Matthew Harder, Elizabeth Henness, Felix Ziwu, Jose Cervantes, Kyle Deatrick, Samantha Ramirez, Andre Llanos, Xuyang Liu

Term(s) and Year(s) Offered: Fall 2015 and Spring 2016

Course Level: Lower Division

Syllabus: Physical Geology Lab syllabus (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 14kB Mar28 16)

In both semesters instructors used used unit 1 from Humans' Dependence on Earth's Resources and unit 1 from Climate of Change. In the Spring, they included an activity that linked natural disasters in the El Paso area to climate change.

Teaching Materials

Modules Adopted

Modules Adapted

Climate of Change

Unit 1- Many instructors have used unit 1 "as is." It is one of the most popular units in any class we have taught. Students are sometimes assigned the reading as homework and complete the self-assessment before class. In large classes students walk between tables where questions are posted, rather than gathering along the walls to answer questions. For a large class coordination of what questions are answered in what order is important to avoid chaos. The reading was shortened and vocabulary simplified for an introductory environmental science class.

Unit 2 case study 2.1 – To save on printing of color figures the activity on the equatorial Pacific has sometimes been done as a gallery walk. Other instructors use color figures that are laminated or encased in plastic so they can re-use the figures. In large classes each group is assigned only one set of figures and they then compare their results to other groups in a jig saw type approach.

Unit 3 – Case study 3.1 works well in small and large classrooms. Materials can be copied in black and white with color figures displayed by project in the front of the class. The highs and lows on the figures can also be labeled by hand so they can be understood by students in black and white.

Unit 5 – Students in small classes seem to enjoy this activity. In a large class it did not work well. Students got very confused.

Unit 6 – Instructors chose to emphasize effects of extreme heat (for El Paso area). Some modified to only discuss extreme heat. See Doser's Fall 2013 (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 19kB Mar26 16) and Fall 2014 (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 17kB Mar26 16) teaching logs, and Barnes' ESCI 1301 teaching log (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 14kB Mar26 16) for examples of how activities were modified.

Other modifications: UTEP physical geology laboratories had students research natural hazards of the El Paso area early in the semester and then investigated how climate change impacted these hazards (e.g. heavier rains during strong El Nino).

Humans' dependence on Earth's mineral resources

We have collected many notes on how users have modified materials. This Spring 2015 teaching log (Microsoft Word 32kB Sep7 15) explains how the Humans' Dependence on Mineral Resources units were modified and taught in Spring 2015 for a geological engineering class.

Compare this to the modifications and lessons learned for the same class in Spring 2014, detailed in this teaching log (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 37kB Sep7 15).

Environmental Justice and Freshwater Resources

Doser outlines the activities she used in this module and some of the modifications she made in the Connecting Science to Issues of Justice in your Course webinar, held in February 2016.

Unit 1 – Several instructors ask the students to reflect on Environmental Justice in the El Paso area. One instructor had his students go take photos of injustice they saw in the area.

Unit 2 – This was modified by one instructor to be combined with part of Unit 3 for a class lasting 1 hour 20 minutes. Some instructors took out Google Earth components of Units 2 and 3 due to limited wifi in their classrooms. Students often are assigned water footprint for homework. Many find this activity a real eye opener.

Unit 3 – Color figures can be copied in black and white if sufficient explanation is added and color images are projected at the front of the classroom.

Unit 5 – This activity has been shortened to focus on the time-line development and on the timing of the migration of the contaminants. One difficulty faced is that the permeability related calculations include very large and small numbers. Some students use cell phone calculators that are not designed to store very large or small numbers (no scientific notation available). Engineers especially enjoy the calculations. Many students "freeze" when faced with the calculations.

Unit 6 – This activity is highly relevant to El Paso. Some classes assign finding the water level data as homework and a few students had difficulty downloading the data from the USGS website. Most instructors ask students to find data for El Paso as well as the Ogallala aquifer.

Living on the Edge
 EPCC teaches a course on Natural Hazards as their second Earth Science course for non-majors. The instructors find the material very relevant to this class. Unit 1 was used by several instructors.

Exploring Geoscience Methods

Used by Joshua Villalobos for Earth Science course to introduce non-majors to geological thinking.

A Growing Concern

Doser used Unit 1 exercise on comparing various landscapes (natural, farmed, urban) as a combination individual and group activity (see Doser's Fall 2015 teaching log (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 34kB Mar26 16)). Visual learners enjoyed comparison of the photos. The activity concluded with calculations of the water, animal and land needed for a typical breakfast.