At the University of Nebraska at Omaha, we have involved students in introductory Geology and Chemistry classes in an interdisciplinary study of drinking water quality. The goals of this project are to introduce the students to the scientific method, get them to actually "do" relevant science, and show how science affects their lives. We have also used this exercise to help some students overcome their fear of science by allowing them to actively learn science, rather than absorb it in a passive fashion.

These courses are mainly populated by first or second year students. There is typically a significant population (average 15%) of pre-service elementary and secondary level teacher education majors who take the introductory Geology classes. The majority of students in these courses are non-majors, taking the course to fulfill a natural science requirement. Interestingly, we have been able to attract majors with this exercise. The Chemistry course serves mainly pre-health students, engineering majors, and other STEM area majors.

Learn more about the Drinking Water Quality Interdisciplinary Research Experience

Students at the University of Montana Western take classes in an immersion scheduling system called Experience One. Students take a single class for five days a week over 18 instructional days (Thomas and Roberts, 2009). The classes meet a minimum of 3 hours per day, but classes can meet for up to 7 hours per day or be off campus on domestic and international trips for part of the course or the entire duration of the course. For example, my Environmental Field Studies class meets 7 hours per day and I am taking an introductory physical geology class to Nepal for 3 weeks in the spring of 2013. It is similar to the system used by Colorado College, but we adopted it for the sole purpose of incorporating experiential learning across the university curriculum.

How does it work in an introductory course? Most of my introductory courses (e.g., Physical Geology and Environmental Geology) are currently meeting the typical 3 hours per day (i.e., typical of general education courses), and have a mix of lecture, lab and projects. The major project is a quasi-research project entitled "The Rock Project" that was nominated for (but did not receive) the AAAS Inquiry Prize in 2011. It was published in the Journal of Geoscience Education (Thomas, 2001).

Field Excursion to the Khumbu Region of Nepal, a course offered in the spring of 2013, will take our Physical Geology class to the Khumbu region of the Nepal Himalayas to learn through experience. We will spend three weeks learning introductory geology with no textbook, no official lectures and no exams. The students will construct a photo journal of the geology, focus on a specific topic of their own to collect data while in Nepal and then present at the UMW Research Symposium, and they will engage in a collected project to assess damage done by a recent 6.9 magnitude earthquake in the area.

Learn more about Experience One with the Experience One curriculum PowerPoint (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 7.7MB Nov10 11)

The Hope College REACH (Research Experience Across Cultures) program is a 6-week summer research program in which local high school students and teachers in West Michigan research alongside college students and professors in the college's Natural and Applied Sciences (NAS) Division on timely and relevant scientific problems.
The goals of the REACH program are to:

1. expose local high school students and teachers to the opportunities and excitement of scientific research,
   
2. provide scientific experience to high school students in the hope that they will pursue a career in the mathematical and/or natural sciences,
   
3. provide underrepresented groups the opportunity to do scientific research in the hope of increasing diversity within the college community and these fields of study, and
   
4. improve communication and education relationships between Hope College and the area high school communities.

During the summer of 2010, a pilot REACH II team-based research project to survey the bogs of Allegan County was undertaken. Our ultimate research goal was to use paleoenvironmental indicators in the Allegan peat bogs to develop a climate history of the lower Great Lakes region since deglaciation occurred approximately 13,000 years ago. Our first step was a county-wide reconnaissance of the stratigraphy and geologic history of the Allegan County peat bogs. It was this study that was performed by the REACH II team.
Learn more about the Peat Bogs of Allegan County research project[end hidden']