Workshops
The morning workshop program is open for registration. Workshop size is limited based on room capacity, and space is reserved on a first come, first serve basis.
Jump to: Monday-Wednesday | Thursday-Friday
Monday-Wednesday
Preparing for an Academic Career in the Geosciences
Conveners: Sue Ebanks (Savannah State University), Lisa Gilbert (Cabrillo College), Lynsey LeMay (Thomas Nelson Community College), Brendan Hanger (Colorado School of Mines), Gary Weissmann (University of New Mexico)
This workshop is designed specifically for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and others who are interested in pursuing academic careers in the geosciences. Workshop leaders from a variety of institution types and career paths will provide guidance and information that will help participants to be stronger candidates for academic positions and to succeed in academic jobs. Each participant will develop or revise a plan for their next career stage and will take home ideas that they can implement immediately. Informal discussions and one-on-one mentoring are available during lunch and afternoons. Participants will re-join the group for peer review of application materials on Monday and Tuesday evenings. Additional professional development is available through the afternoon workshops, panels, and plenary sessions that are part of the Earth Educators' Rendezvous.
2YC Whole Student Mentoring: Recruiting and Guiding Students into Geosciences
Conveners: Patrick Shabram (Front Range Community College), Donna Charlevoix (UNAVCO), Kelsey Russo-Nixon (UNAVCO)
This workshop will provide faculty and graduate students interested in teaching with information and resources to improve their mentoring interactions with students, with an emphasis on students attending two-year colleges (2YC) and/or recent transfer students. Collectively, students at 2YC typically have different demographic characteristics than students found at most four-year universities. Whole Student Mentoring provides a framework to meet the students where they navigate their academic experience. As part of this workshop, we will introduce evidence-based concepts of intentionally mentoring students in STEM, include components specifically provided for mentoring students from underrepresented groups, and identify and provide teaching and learning resources regarding geoscience career pathways.
Accessible and Equitable: Using Universal Design for Learning in Earth Science Learning Spaces
Conveners: Jennifer Lewis (University of Calgary), Wendi Williams (South Texas College), Laura Rowan Hollister (Pitman High School), Heather Houlton (AGI)
The goal of this workshop is to explore the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), discuss how UDL applies to different educational levels (K-12, undergraduate, graduate) and how UDL works in different learning formats including traditional face-to-face classrooms, synchronous and asynchronous online classrooms and hybrid classrooms. Participants will explore and implement aspects of UDL as well as disability accessibility in their course content and facilitation styles.
Preparing Students for Careers, Licensure, and Industry
Conveners: Matt Pendleton (EKI Environment & Water, Inc.), Craig Nichol (University of British Columbia), James Kubicki (University of Texas at El Paso), and Rachel Phillips (University of Texas at El Paso)
The goal of this workshop is to help initiate programmatic and departmental change to better prepare students for careers in geoscience, or careers reached via a geoscience degree. The workshop will expand upon the recommendations of the AGI's Vision and Change in the Geosciences document to enable teams from a department, or department champions, to explore best practices in supporting career preparation and transferable skills development. Over three days, the workshop will focus on: (1) information and career options exploration during engagement, recruitment, and introductory courses; (2) supporting career planning, stakeholder interactions and alumni involvement for students within degrees; and (3) preparing graduating students for career transitions including professional licensure. Participants will develop short-term and long-term action plans for their programs.
Bringing visual groundwater teaching tools and field experiences into K-12 teaching
Conveners: Peter Kang (University of Minnesota), Mathew Winbigler (Cloquet High School), Carmen Gavin Vanegas (South High School)
Did you know that about 99% of global unfrozen freshwater is stored in groundwater systems? Many people are aware of the need to protect the surface water in our lakes and streams, but most do not know what we can do to keep our groundwater clean. This 3-day workshop is designed for K-12 teachers and anyone who would like to educate the general public about groundwater. On the first day, participants will learn about the basics of groundwater and visual groundwater teaching tools, with opportunities to discuss how to incorporate the teaching tools into their curriculum. On the second day, participants will apply their learning on a field tour of a groundwater research site on the UMN campus, including a discussion of how to use field experiences to help students understand issues affecting groundwater locally. On the third day, participants will work with instructors to develop concrete ideas for how to incorporate the visual tools and field experiences into their own K-12 teaching curricula.
Thursday-Friday
Creating a Graduate Program that Fosters the Success of All Students
Conveners: Anne Egger (Central Washington University) and Karen Viskupic (Boise State University)
Are you a faculty member or administrator wanting to incorporate inclusive and equitable practices in admissions and programming to support your graduate students? Please join us for a two-day workshop to learn more about best practices, share ideas with colleagues, and develop plans for your own institution. Participants will explore holistic review of graduate applications, onboarding courses for graduate students, mentoring practices, building community, and career planning, and will leave with a plan to better promote the success of all graduate students.
Perception Science + Real-World Data + Data Visualization = Enhancing Students' Data Analysis & Interpretation
Conveners: Kristin Hunter-Thomson, (Dataspire Education & Evaluation LLC, Rutgers University) and Tracy Ostrom (University of California-Berkeley)
Join us as we highlight findings of perception science and approaches to data visualization to help students unpack "Analyzing & Interpreting Data" when it comes to looking at lots of geoscience data. We will explore how utilizing online data portals' quick graph features for initial data exploration can help break down the black box of data for students, and how to leverage these features more effectively in students' Exploratory Data Analysis. Then we will discuss how to leverage perception sciences and data visualization tricks to our advantage to help students build their data analysis and interpretation skills more deeply with easy-to-use classroom strategies.
Teaching atmosphere, ocean, and planetary fluid dynamic fundamentals vividly with rotating tanks
Conveners: Jon Aurnou (UCLA), Spencer Hill (Columbia University), Alex Gonzalez (Iowa State University), Juan Lora (Yale University), Jordyn Moscoso (UCLA), Mirjam Glessmer (University of Bergen)
Demonstrations using rotating water tanks bring to life fundamental yet tricky concepts of weather, climate, and oceanography, sparking earth science interest in K-12 through graduate students. Participants in this workshop will gain the knowledge, hands-on experience in using rotating tanks, and a portable rotating tank platform of their own (the Do-It-Yourself Dynamics, or DIYnamics, kit). Sessions will include: presentations motivating and providing background for teaching with rotating tanks; hands-on "shop class" sessions on assembling and operating the devices; live demonstrations of key experiments and the concepts they convey; interactive brainstorming sessions about adapting the materials into participants' own classrooms; and discussion sections for sharing best practices, concerns, and support to one another.
Instrument Validity and Reliability
Conveners: Ellen Iverson (Carleton College) and Kerry Vachta (Carleton College)
This workshop is designed specifically for researchers at any stage in their career (from undergraduate to late career) who are interested in learning about instrument validity and reliability. During the two-day workshop, each participant will develop a plan for designing an instrument that they can utilize to guide their efforts at their home institutions and/or across institutions. Additionally, the two-day workshop provides an opportunity for networking and community building among those who may wish to collaborate on either the design of an instrument and/or research using such instruments.