The purpose of this project was to promote and facilitate functional group work by providing feedback for students and professors using peer-assessment surveys administered after group assignments and quizzes. We created a streamlined peer-assessment survey in Qualtrics to collect feedback on an individual's contributions and their overall group dynamic. We created a Walkthough document to share customizable, ready-made peer-assessment templates for short-term group assignments/quizzes and long-term group projects, as well as provide a means of easily extracting data with minimal knowledge of Qualtrics. Also in the Walkthrough are functional tips and considerations when implementing peer-assessment surveys.

The Integrating Chemistry and Earth science (ICE) project developed a new high school chemistry curriculum that infuses Earth science content into a traditional high school chemistry course. In the Thermochemistry Unit, students explore Heat Energy pathways in Urban Baltimore. Teachers use an embedded assessment 2-3 times during instruction to evaluate student understanding and assess learning about how heat energy is transferred, stored and released in urban areas. Teachers pair these assessments with lessons on the heat capacity of urban materials (brick, concrete, marble) and a schoolyard heat exploration using infrared thermometers to help students understand that heat energy behaves differently in urban vs. rural settings. Student outcomes include a more nuanced understanding of how the urban structure influences the behavior of heat energy and how human-built structures contribute to the Urban Heat Island Effect.

This activity will focus on Student-Produced Audio Narratives (SPANs). These are classroom activity assignments where students engage with content by telling a story using simple audio recording and production techniques. The SPAN assignments were aligned with the learning goals of 1) identifying and describing a current issue or problem (and underlying scientific concepts) in the geosciences, 2) identifying an audience that is related to/impacted by this issue, and compose an audio piece to effectively communicate the science to this audience, and 3) examining solutions or approaches to address concerns and illustrate how this may impact the desired audience. The assignments submitted included audio collages, workforce explorations, public service announcements, place-based explorations, and other creative narratives. To achieve their learning goals, the students undertaking the SPAN assignment generally followed the steps of recording, producing logs of the recordings, outlining their project, preparing a script, combining sound elements using software, and then playing the audio narrative for their peers. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant #1708590. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

In this jigsaw activity, students are placed in groups. Each group reads a different written record of an oral history about tsunamis. These indigenous stories are from around the world. To guide their interpretations, students answer activity questions. They look for tsunami characteristics and safety information. Then the groups are mixed. Students share what they learned from each story. Groups compare stories. They discuss: Are there any similarities in the warning signs, descriptions of the tsunami waves, or damage and did the traditional stories contain any safety information? I extend the lesson by sharing the importance of preserving and utilizing traditional knowledge. In Simeulue Island, oral traditions informed generations that feeling an earthquake and observing receding water were signs that a tsunami would quickly arrive and to immediately move to higher ground. Although close to the epicenter of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, only seven out of approximately 75,000 people on the island died. Lessons from the stories that students read are integrated into lessons on modern scientific understanding of tsunamis (causes and characteristics) and tsunami safety (natural warning signs). Students learn that disaster management personnel are using traditional knowledge to improve local hazard preparations.

This activity uses students' cultural heritage and personal experience as a form of place-based geology. As an introduction to minerals, students are asked to provide a photo and write about a culturally or personally significant mineral. This assignment invites students to connect to their cultural heritage while also connecting them personally to the material covered in class. This is also a way for professors to get to know their students better, especially as some students choose a mineral that has sentimental value or that is a family heirloom. This assignment can easily be changed and used with other geology content such as rocks, volcanoes, and streams. Incorporating students' cultural heritage and personal experiences in an assignment is a simple, yet highly effective way to acknowledge and welcome diversity in a geology class.

By examining ways in which humans have interacted with fossils, we can highlight a range of cultural connections to paleontology that emphasize improved representation of inclusive cultural narratives while championing learning about the fossil record in a way that isn't solely from a Eurocentric lens. Fossil use cards are an educational resource developed by several members of the Education and Outreach committee of the Paleontological Society for the "Earth Materials in Our Lives" focus of Earth Science Week 2020, representing rigorous educational development work. This resource includes 25 cards that each feature an image and name of a fossil, and how the fossil resource has been used by humans (e.g., jewelry, forensics, building materials). Students and educators can mix and match cards for small group classroom work or interact with a virtual drag-and-drop version online. The resource contains a list of relevant standards by grade level and NGSS-aligned extension questions for further discussion. Fun facts, a Kahoot quiz, and pseudofossil cards are additionally included for ready-to-use learning opportunities. Learning outcomes include understanding and identification of fossils, how fossils are and have been used by a wide variety of global cultures, and when and where ancient biota lived in Earth history.

The COVID pandemic has changed how all of us are teaching and assessing our students. As in many institutions, most all classes at Waubonsee Community College were online, and in the case of the Physical Geology lecture and lab classes, asynchronous online. This new modality necessitated changes to many assignments and laboratory exercises and experiments. A critical part of the challenge is to make sure that solutions to assessments cannot easily be found with a Google search. This lead to the development of new assessments for the Fall 2020 semester. For the lecture class, a new homework assignment was developed in which students picked a well-defined topic in geology and were asked to write a 1 page paper on it, often called '1 pagers'. The motivation was to engage the students in something they are interested in, while still being on task. Motivation for this assignment was the background discussion section common to many grant proposals. For the lab class, the facebook page 'Higher Education and the Coronavirus" was consulted for ideas, in particular a post by Sheldon Turner of Triton College. He suggested assigning an 'infographic', which is essentially a well-designed and informative poster. Students were asked to design an infographic as their final exam, which was to cover some part of one of the labs that was in the second half of the semester. Reviewing the results of the 1 pagers and infographics, it is clear that these assignments tap into the students own interests, providing them with ownership and motivation leading to their success. Details of the assignments and examples will be provided.

This Share-a-thon presentation will present and sharing of an open educational resource Excel tutorial (CC 4.0 BY NC SA). This Excel tutorial was created to introduce Earth, Environmental and Geographic science students to basic spreadsheet functions. It is written for 100 level students. The Excel tutorial will be available for every user to download prior to the Rendezvous. Participants will gain an overview of the material covered in the tutorial and how it can be incorporated into departmental or program level curriculum for developing quantitative skills.

As a part of the Geology 101 online lab, I have students share a video blog of themselves describing what they did or what they learned by doing the labs. They choose the mode of presentation and submit a URL to the blog space in Blackboard and it counts as 50% of their lab grade. I have found that I can better understand what they did or didn't learn from the lab by watching the video. It is also validation that they did the lab themselves. I can not only grade this blog, but I can engage in dialog with the student about the material.