As geoscientists and citizens, it is readily apparent that we are at a historical moment that is fraught with urgency, seemingly insurmountable difficulty, and numerous opportunities to set a fundamentally new course going forward. As geoscience educators we have the responsibility to provide our students with tools to navigate the uncertain waters ahead. Given the nature of the climate issues we are facing, linking our students and the communities we live in with the critical climate work being done on the national level is an important avenue for fulfilling that responsibility. This poster focuses on two such avenues. 1) The development of local virtual bridges that connect our students and others to UN and other international climate events through local "watch parties" virtually connected to these global events.2) Support for and participation in the development of a United State ACE national plan. ACE is short for Action for Climate Empowerment. ACE is a facet of both the original 1992 United National Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) treating and 2015 Paris Climate Agreement aimed at "empowering all members of global society to engage in climate action, through education, training, public awareness, public participation, and public access to information on both the national and international level".This poster is a follow up to an article having the same title that was published in the April 2021 issue of "In the Trenches" magazine.

We have developed an outreach program for grades 5-12 designed to engage students in learning about the diversity and importance of the geosciences. Our outreach team features a panel of geoscience undergraduates actively conducting research in a diversity of geoscience fields. While the idea behind our program was initially a response to lack of student motivation during COVID-19 online learning in grade schools, the virtual platform provides us the opportunity to reach out to schools across the nation to introduce students to the diversity of fields in the geosciences. Exposure to the diverse range of fields within geosciences in our secondary school system is often lacking. We provide students a glimpse into our field in an exciting and motivating manner. These presentations involve a tag-team of four to five undergraduate students who give insights into their unique experiences in the geosciences, followed by intermissions for students to interact directly with the presenters. We discuss a diverse selection of topics throughout the geosciences, including but not limited to environmental sciences, planetary geology, seismology, computational geosciences, and paleontology. During the current pandemic, our main method of outreach is to give interactive presentations to middle school and high school classrooms through platforms such as Zoom and Google Meets. While in the future we may transition to in-person events, online outreach will remain important for schools where travel is impractical due to the distance. To date, we have presented to three Texas schools, including two high schools and one middle school. Students demonstrated significant interest, asking a range of questions both during the online interaction and later through email. We are working to establish relationships with more classrooms, both in and out of the state, to create a program that will transcend past our own graduation, and will continue for years to come.

Overviews and generalized examples of how to apply Universal Design in Instruction (UDI) with embedded strategies to diminish barriers for Persons with Disabilities have been shared during earlier Earth Educator Rendezvous sessions (2017 and 2018) and through a recent NAGT Professional Webinar (28 April 2021) to promote better design for equity and inclusion in various STEM learning spaces. This poster will include a synopsis of strategies for apparent and non apparent disabilities and focus on several introductory geosciences activities modified and mapped to UDI guidelines addressing engagement, representation and action – expression. This is to provide discipline-specific examples designed for: (1) access through recruiting interest and providing options for perception and physical action; (2) building skills to sustain and persist; and (3) internalizing through self-regulation, comprehension and executive function. UDI reaches a wide range of learners and, additionally, is best modeled for pre-service teacher candidates also enrolled in general core introductory courses.

Geosciences Research Collaborations for Student Success (GeoRCSS) is a unique partnership between Austin Community College (ACC) and the Jackson School of Geosciences (JSG) at The University of Texas at Austin to develop collaborative peer learning communities (PLCs) in the Geosciences with mixed cohorts of two-year college (2YC) and four-year college (4YC) students. The Jackson School recognizes the importance of diverse voices in the geosciences, and acknowledges the need to create equitable opportunities. ACC has higher representation of non-traditional, low income, and underrepresented students than UT Austin. By partnering JSG with ACC, we hope to 1) increase transfer rates and success of students moving from 2YC to 4YC, 2) increase the diversity of students within the geosciences, 3) generate knowledge about how high-impact educational activities influence transfer student success, and 4) develop an effective research-based 2YC-4YC partnership and innovation model that can be replicated across the nation. In the PLCs, students and peer mentors will engage in tiered learning phases and scaffolded peer mentoring as students gain experience. These experiences start in the students' first year with authentic research or industry internships, individual faculty advising, curriculum alignment between ACC and JSG, and scholarships to help low-income students from both institutions. Knowledge generation activities will characterize the collaborative work and learning involved in the 2YC-4YC transition and relate it to longer term outcomes, including academic performance, graduation, advanced studies and geoscientific career pathways. Although only a few students have been recruited to date, those from ACC have participated in faculty-led research and transferred successfully into JSG (n=2) and Natural Sciences (n=1) at UT Austin. We are more fully implementing the program this year, including an undergraduate mentor to help recruit ACC and JSG students and assessments of student needs and gains during the program.

In Spring 2021, twelve facilitators from the NAGT Traveling Workshop Program (TWP; https://nagt.org/nagt/profdev/twp) organized a discussion pod as part of the Unlearning Racism in Geoscience program (URGE; https://urgeoscience.org). The TWP has ~40 facilitators who conduct workshops for departments or faculty groups on topics such as Building Stronger Geoscience and Environmental Science Programs, Making Your Course More Effective and Societally Relevant, and Supporting the Success of All Students. URGE, sponsored by NSF and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, consisted of a 16-week curriculum of interviews, articles, and deliverables (i.e., anti-racism policies and strategies) for discussion in pods. While TWP facilitators previously had developed resources for teaching inclusively and supporting the whole student, the TWP pod identified a need for improved anti-racism policies, facilitators' content knowledge, and facilitation training. URGE topics were relevant for potential issues facilitators face during workshops, for example helping departments strategize policies and practices for collaborating successfully with minoritized communities. We used URGE discussion sessions and deliverables to revise how TWP facilitators plan and implement workshops at different types of institutions, provide resources on inclusion and equity to workshop participants, and encourage synergies across institutions that benefit marginalized students and faculty. Reviewing URGE deliverables created by other programs will help inform how TWs might support change in those programs. Some existing NAGT policies (i.e., the NAGT Activities Code of Conduct) satisfied the URGE deliverables for the TWP pod, but the pod also identified gaps. Two acute needs are to develop 1) a strategy to equitably and inclusively identify and train new facilitators, and 2) policies to sustainably share TWP leadership across the diverse group of facilitators. The TWP welcomes community input to make the TWP a full agent for helping the geosciences become anti-racist.

The five-month long virtual Unlearning Racism in Geoscience (URGE) program was developed to empower groups, or pods, of geoscience faculty to implement anti-racist strategies and policies within their departments and institutions. Our 2YC URGE pod included twelve individuals: eleven who are solo geologists on their two-year campus or members of very small two-year college departments, and the project manager for SAGE 2YC (Supporting and Advancing Geoscience Education at Two-Year Colleges). We connected to explore antiracist learning activities, strategies, and policies that improve the environment for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) geoscientists in higher education. As the individuals in our pod came from collective institutions that do not have geoscience departments with the ability to make policies, our pod's focus was different from other pods, as we directed our attention to the introductory-level geoscience classroom, students in the first two years, and faculty. The pod applied the learning and discussion every two weeks and developed a resource document that includes both suggestions for faculty to apply in their own classrooms, and information to share with departmental and institutional administrators. For example, in the document's section focusing on students, topic areas range from impacting admissions to embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) concepts in a syllabus, during the first day of class, and throughout the curriculum. The section that focuses on faculty and administration includes examples of: mentoring and advising strategies; institution DEI resolutions and statements; sample complaints and reporting policies; and, mitigating racial biases during the faculty hiring process. Although the URGE program has formally concluded, the 2YC URGE pod will continue to advance anti-racist strategies and policies, creating change within institutional structures and professional organizations, with intention, accountability, and inclusivity. The document will continue to develop and can be accessed at: http://bit.ly/2YCURGE

In addition to the extensive topical content requirements in a bachelor of science degree in atmospheric science, one of the key skills and competencies that the American Meteorological Society recommends for undergraduate students lies within scientific computing and data analytics. Accordingly, many atmospheric science programs require a computer programming course, taught either "in house" or in a computer science department. Though computer programming may stereotypically be considered a solitary activity, prior work in engineering and computer science have demonstrated the numerous benefits of collaborative programming, otherwise known as pair programming. This approach involves two programmers working together to create a single program; one serves as the driver, writing the code, while another serves as the navigator, leading the driver and reviewing the code as it is written. These roles are switched frequently, and often result in higher quality code completed in less time. To the author's knowledge, the incorporation of pair programming in atmospheric science computer programming courses has yet to be documented. This presentation will outline the logistics involved in delivering and managing pair programming in a meteorological computer applications course fully online during the Spring 2021 semester, along with its benefits and challenges. Student feedback and student performance compared to prior iterations of the course will also be described.

This poster summarizes my reflection on two courses I taught during the pandemic. Both courses targeted non-science students, both courses had about 200 students, both courses were taught in an online asynchronous mode, both courses were taken by students across multiple time zones, both courses included weekly quizzes, two multiple choice open-book tests, and a scaffolded assignment, and both courses used a very similar web presence. One course offered recorded lectures, worksheets, and summary concept maps to introduce material, more like a traditional lecture course, and encouraged but did not require students to collaborate. The other course facilitated small-group discussions (all students were expected to collaborate in teams of four throughout the term), and provided links to websites and short summary videos to highlight key concepts. My poster will include quantitative data as well as a synopsis of student comments from the course evaluations, and my own thoughts regarding the preparation of the courses, their delivery, and propose hypothesis regarding why some aspects did not work well and what students expect from me as an online instructor.

The need to transform the undergraduate laboratory experience in order to provide students access to authentic research opportunities has been well documented. At Delta State University, students enrolled in Materials and Methods of Environmental Science investigated whether fruit associated with different areas of the United States could correlate to soils in which they were grown. During the past five spring semesters (2017-2021), 25 noncommercial fruit spreads were studied: cactus marmalade from Tucson, Arizona, grape jelly from Mills, Massachusetts, blackberry jam and muscadine jelly from Cleveland, Mississippi, strawberry preserves from Fredericksburg, Texas, peach jam from Laurel, Virginia and Nampa, Idaho, blue elderberry jam and plum jam from Lincoln Co., Nevada and more. Each sample was cooked on a hot plate for a week and then divided into crucibles and placed in a Muffle Furnace for 24 hours at 1,000 °C to generate an ash. The ash samples were analyzed with an energy dispersive x-ray unit associated with a JEOL scanning electron microscope to determine elemental composition. The National Conservation Resource Service soil website was used to establish the local soil types that were associated with each sample. Altogether, 21 chemical elements were noted and many of the samples were associated with the local soils. For example, a calcium spike occurred in samples from Lincoln County, Nevada, which is probably due to limestone rich soils and samples from the Mississippi Delta yielded the most elements possibly due to periodic flooding by the Mississippi River and its tributaries that covered the area prior to levee construction. Overall, this study links geology, chemistry, soil science, and scientific methodology and the results are of broad relevance to the scientific community. Success of this project is further documented by peer-reviewed posters, an international paper, and presentations that have been given at professional conferences.

PublicSensors (and its Spanish language counterpart SensoresPublicos) is an educational initiative promoting STEM literacy through hands-on construction and use of environmental sensors, collection of community science-based data, and data interpretation. These active learning experiences provide exposure to engineering principles and skills that may benefit students beyond their educational endeavors and facilitate an understanding of environmental science through local hands-on applications. PublicSensors aims to address underserved K-12 through college students and their families by increasing access to technology-based science for diverse audiences, incorporating Next Generation Science Standards through technology and community outreach.PublicSensors leads sensor-building workshops for both remote and in-person learning with flexible grade-level content. Students and their families are loaned free activity kits, enabling them to construct environmental sensors (e.g. temperature, light, acoustic distance) and use them to study their own local environment. Using a tiered system of engagement, students first learn basic circuit building with beginner kits, then transition to intermediate kits where they build data loggers, and finally build advanced sensors that collect and report data in real-time. Students can also interact with their sensors via computer, gaining proficiency in computer science concepts through Python-based activities that enable further exploration of their sensors. Additional classroom modules are available adapting these basic sensors for underwater sonar and pH sensing. PublicSensors has conducted sensor-building programs for 5th grade through undergraduate students, as well as professional development training for high school teachers. Materials in both English and Spanish are freely available at PublicSensors.org and SensoresPublicos.org, with options to follow structured lessons or modify activities based on available resources, and require no previous technical experience. PublicSensors plans to serve as a community hub where participants can engage across classrooms and communities to share their experiences and environmental data.

Advancing Community College Education and Student Success (ACCESS) is a collaborative partnership between the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) and local community colleges. In typical years, the program features specimen-based lab courses utilizing fossils from the UCMP collections. However, the COVID-19 pandemic created unique obstacles for the program, our partners, and our ability to accommodate a diverse body of students with differing needs. To meet the needs of our partner institutions during the pandemic, we shifted our focus to the development of online paleobiology and geoscience experiences to provide an alternative to the in-person ACCESS labs.The adaptation of the ACCESS labs to a digital format allowed us to utilize a wider range of resources including three-dimensional models of fossils (many of which would not be available in an in-person ACCESS lesson), online databases, and virtual interactives. Incorporating these resources into the online ACCESS labs allowed us to develop a new suite of lessons in collaboration with our partners. The inclusion of databases (e.g., Paleobiology Database) and interactive tools (e.g., UCMP Understanding Global Change) in these online labs allowed us to place a greater emphasis upon scientific inquiry, data collection, and hypothesis testing by focusing on phenomena throughout Earth history.Student and instructor responses to the online labs have been overwhelmingly positive.Online ACCESS labs enable us to provide lessons in synchronous and asynchronous formats; synchronous lessons via partner-hosted video conferencing allow students to interact with UCMP instructors. In addition, the online format removes physical and monetary (i.e., specimens, transport costs) barriers to engagement with our partners. This has enabled us to expand ACCESS labs to community colleges across the country. As we continue to develop the ACCESS program, our goal is to develop a sustainable program model that can be replicated regardless of institutional constraints.

Incorporating play in classrooms has been shown to improve student learning (Griggs et al., 2009); however, the advantages may not be equal across all learners. Some studies have suggested that gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic background may correlate with students' likelihood of engaging in educational games (e.g., Andrews, 2008; Martindale and Weiss, 2020). Here, we assess the efficacy of educational board games in geoscience classrooms among different demographic groups. We hypothesize that utilizing high-context games as an educational medium will ameliorate the gap in educational gains between groups with different cultural backgrounds. We also present a new educational game, "Reef Survivor'', designed to help players learn about reef ecology, evolution, extinction, and resilience in the face of environmental change. In the game, players (or teams) are conservation experts in charge of preserving their reef, while they are challenged with changing conditions like evolution (e.g., mutations, migration) and biotic or environmental disturbances (e.g., hurricanes, global warming). Online versions of the games "Reef Survivor" and "Taphonomy: Dead and Fossilized" were developed in Google Jamboard, so they could be played in a web-based geoscience course during the COVID-19 pandemic. The efficacy of these games was evaluated with undergraduate geoscience students in the freshman class "Life Through Time" at the Jackson School of Geosciences (n=58). Four lab sections (11 to 17 students) were observed and learning gains were assessed across the two games over two 2-hour lab sessions. Two sections had competitive gaming conditions with one control group and the other with a positive priming condition (stereotype threat counter). The other two sections played collaboratively and competitively (teams of two), again with one control and one group with positive priming conditions. Evaluation instruments include pre/post surveys completed by students and an observation protocol adapted from Kern et al. (2007).

Rock and mineral laboratory activities are an integral component of introductory geoscience courses, providing critical opportunities for students to apply what they learn in lecture. Despite the evidence that inquiry-based instruction increases science literacy skills, course engagement, and self-efficacy, introductory geoscience laboratory activities are commonly taught in a confirmation-based style, in which the students are expected to memorize facts rather than produce findings. Prior works indicated that of all STEM fields, geology laboratories, particularly rock and mineral activities, tend to be the least inquiry-based. However, these analyses rely on activities published in printed laboratory manuals. To test whether the same is true of instructor-generated activities, we measured the levels of inquiry and utility within introductory rock and mineral laboratory activities published in the Science Education Resource Center teaching collection. A detailed analysis of how these activities are structured in the context of inquiry (n = 36) and utility (n = 20) are provided. Inquiry analyses employed an adaptation of the modified Buck et al. (2008) rubric presented in Ryker and McConnell (2017). Utility analyses were performed using a newly developed nine-item rubric loosely modeled from McConnell et al. (2017). None of the examined assessments attained open or authentic inquiry. Laboratory activity inquiry ranged from confirmation (22%) to guided (17%), with the majority identified as structured (61%). The utility scores ranged from 12 - 24 on a scale ranging from 9 - 27 (i.e., most difficult to easiest implementation). The results provide no significant relationship between high levels of inquiry and low levels of utility (p-value > 0.1), contradictory to prevailing notions that increasing inquiry levels comes at the expense of utility. The rubrics utilized in and developed for this study could provide researchers with beneficial tools for further exploration of laboratory activities on other topics, or in different disciplines.

Engagement with the natural world is imperative to student learning in the geo- and environmental sciences. Immersion in the environment is particularly useful for complicated subjects like nutrient cycling and biogeochemistry. However, access to the outdoors is not ubiquitous, and often students living in urban centers and/or remote locations are unable to access geo-, bio- and environmental science activities and demonstrations. This inaccessibility was exacerbated by the pandemic. During the summer of 2020, we created a remote learning activity to teach the carbon cycle to high school students enrolled in the University of Michigan's Earth Camp. These high school students from the greater Detroit area were admitted to this week-long summer program to facilitate their access to the natural world, but when Earth Camp was moved online for safety reasons, this access became more limited. Students collected hair from their pets and their pets' foods (or in the case of students without pets, their favorite snack foods) and sent it to the University of Michigan's Earth Systems Laboratory for isotope analyses. Prior to processing, students recorded ingredients in their specimens and hypothesized what isotope values their specimens should have, based on C3/C4 plant distribution. The students' results, which showed strong correlation between pet hair and pet food, allowed them to examine how the Earth's carbon cycle is reflected by common plants and animals living in their own homes as well as the opportunity to collect physical observations and analyze their own data. This activity received positive evaluations from students, and students felt their knowledge of isotopes and the chemistry behind their food increased after this activity. In addition to the Earth Camp audience, we created and shared an activity that can be used in high school and introductory undergraduate Earth and environmental science courses.

In Climate Data Analysis (ATS 301) at Oregon State University, students develop basic Python programming skills for plotting and statistical analysis of climate data. With the transition to remote instruction in Fall 2020, the instructor and TA were no longer able to provide informal feedback in person. To mitigate this, we used the Jupyter Notebook packages nbgrader, plotchecker, and matplotcheck to set up "autograding" of notebooks. Students ran scripts within their notebooks for instant feedback (for example "Y-axis label missing", "Incorrect number of points plotted; check the year range") while working through their assignments. A human grader still assigned the final grade for the "autograded" questions, as well as the short answer questions. The intentions were for students to gain confidence about their coding when the instructor was not available and to free instructor time for more student interaction. Informal polling indicated that all students found the automated feedback at least somewhat useful. Submitted assignments had fewer of the common plotting errors (e.g., missing legends, incorrect data plotted) seen in previous years. Grading required less time, as the grader could use the autograder output to target flagged answers. The biggest drawback was the large amount of time (and proficiency with Python) needed to write the scripts specific to each assignment. Clear instructions were needed regarding plot details, variable names, etc., and there were many corner cases to address. In future years, these tests will be refined to be easier to use and provide more feedback to students regarding common errors. While this tool was developed partially due to the switch to remote learning necessitated by COVID-19, we will continue to use it upon returning to the classroom.Instructors are welcome to contact the author for examples of testing scripts and nbgrader configuration.

The presentation will identify the five key components found in successful and highly engaging online geoscience lab courses. Examples will be taken from online earth science and geology courses offered at a two-year community college. Attendees will see specific examples of how the key components are incorporated into different online science labs and how each component creates an environment that promotes the understanding of science and the students' success.Following the presentation, attendees will be asked to reflect on the geoscience labcourses they design, teach or would like to design and teach and identify concrete waysthey can incorporate the five key components into those online geoscience labs. Attendees will share their plans to utilize the information from the presentation with thegroup and will have time during the Q&A to discuss as a group, pose follow up questionsto the presenter and ultimately leave the session with an action plan to create, update and facilitate engaging online geoscience labs.

Inquiry laboratory activities provide opportunities to engage undergraduates in introductory geoscience courses. Often, labs are considered the "hands-on" portion of introductory courses, but activities are a series of instructions and questions in a "cookbook" format that guide students to the right answer, but do not engage their curiosity or pursuit of scientific inquiry. New inquiry activities for introductory geology lab courses were developed in summer 2020 as part of a three-day workshop at EER. We studied the implementation of at least three new labs by teaching assistants (TAs) at three institutions in fall 2020. Previous research has shown that inquiry lab activities enhance undergraduate student learning and can be implemented by TAs with minimal training (1). However, teaching inquiry labs may also serve as professional development for TAs during early teaching experiences and disciplinary enculturation, which play pivotal roles in developing their teaching beliefs and practices (2). Comparison of Teacher Beliefs Interviews (3) from start and end of fall 2020 reveals changes in TA beliefs regarding their roles as instructors and ways they recognize student learning is happening in their class sessions. Interview coding uses five categories from Traditional to Reform-based beliefs (3). Preliminary comparison of interviews from pre- and post- teaching experiences suggests TA beliefs about their role as an instructor shift 1-2 categories towards Reform-based instruction. There appears to be less movement towards Reform-based beliefs in TAs descriptions of how students learn; TA beliefs stay in the same category or less frequently, move one step towards Reform-based instruction. The results from this work will be useful in characterizing the role that teaching experiences play in the evolution of a TA's teaching belief system and can inform the way science TAs are trained. (1) Ryker & McConnell, 2014; (2) Lane et al., 2019 (3) Luft & Roehrig, 2007

Computation enables students and researchers to access data, visualize it, perform analyses, connect to instruments, and model systems to predict behavior and events. The need for a computationally savvy workforce that can address complex, wicked problems demands equipping students with quantitative literacy and skills for future studies and work.The transition to online teaching due to COVID-19 has been challenging across geoscience education, and learning computational skills in a remote-learning environment may be particularly challenging for students who are new to programming or who are still developing their quantitative skills. The 2020 Teaching Computation Online with MATLAB workshop endeavored to tackle these challenges by bringing together faculty to share and build upon strategies for teaching computation online – both for those who are new to it, as well as experienced educators who are looking for new strategies. The October 2020 three-day virtual workshop brought together a group of 49 participants, leaders, and staff, with the goal of sharing effective classroom activities, online MATLAB tools for teaching and grading, and MATLAB expertise. Through a combination of presentations, discussions, and group and individual work time, the workshop program offered participants space and guidance to create and strengthen curriculum and bring home best practices to apply in their courses. Participants identified and discussed strategies that are engaging and interactive, including those that facilitate learning-by-doing, group discussions, and real-time assessment. They also developed ideas around using MATLAB tools (Live Editor/Live Scripts, MATLAB Grader, MATLAB Online, MATLAB Drive) and LMS-embedded tools. Online assessment strategies included how to best design assessments, addressing equity and accessibility challenges, and mitigating cheating. A synthesis of these strategies, recommendations, tools, and resources is available on the Teaching Online web page. In addition, collections of faculty-authored, peer-reviewed teaching activities, essays, and courses are available for free on the website.

Undergraduate students may possess underdeveloped knowledge about water systems, particularly groundwater. The use of models and modeling have been employed in undergraduate classrooms to support students' learning about water. However, effective modeling requires spatial thinking skills, which undergraduate students may need to develop. To address this need, we developed a multi-week intervention involving an array of spatial thinking activities to support undergraduate students' use of a computer-based groundwater modeling tool. This intervention took place in an intro-level undergraduate water course. Students used the model to complete a task involving a groundwater contaminant scenario. Here, we report findings from a comparative study conducted in two consecutive semesters: Year 1 (n=56) and Year 2 (n=46), the latter of which involved the intervention. We explored their understanding of space, representation, and reasoning (NRC, 2006) by conducting quantitative and qualitative analyses on student tasks and interviews. Findings suggest that students in year 2 better articulated concepts of space. However, students in both years did not perform as expected on tools of representation or reasoning. Students exhibited a relatively limited understanding of representation within the model, particularly about contour lines. Students also struggled to reason about groundwater using information from the model. Overall, these results suggest students struggle with certain aspects of spatial thinking in relation to this groundwater modeling tool. These findings have implications for undergraduate teaching and learning about groundwater.