Traditional undergraduate education often consists of passive delivery of course content without explicit focus on fostering the development of essential skills. However, in recent years, various STEM disciplines ...

Introductory geology courses provide crucial opportunities to learn how to apply scientific information and practices, and help recruit students to the major. As such, high quality instruction is important, ...

Geology field camp (field camp) is a required part of the undergraduate curriculum at many geology programs in the United States. Field camp is generally a capstone course for juniors and seniors where students ...

Modern learning science suggests that reading and studying a topic alone is not sufficient to gain working knowledge. Proficiency is gained through the practice of the topic. Students today face competition from ...

Hydrogeologists integrate three-dimensional data from maps, wells, field sites, and models to understand subsurface movement of groundwater and pollutants. This work is highly spatial. While many students enter ...

To address the wicked problems of sustainability in a global economy, students need instruction that drives them to use systems thinking and integrate ideas from across multiple disciplines. The NSF-funded ...

Increasing consensus about anthropogenic changes to Earth's climate within the scientific community is not fully reflected in current public opinion, suggesting that work needs to be done in fostering climate ...

"Reef Survivor: Jamaica" is an educational board game that incorporates elements of place-based education and Earth systems thinking to help players learn about reef ecology and resilience in the face of ...

Universities often require incoming graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) participate in a Teaching Assistant Orientation (TAO), though the scope and content vary. TAO at the University of South Carolina, provided ...

Set in the Brays Bayou watershed in Houston after extreme flooding due to Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, students will roleplay stakeholders in the neighborhood who are evaluating mitigation strategies to prevent ...

In this experiential laboratory, students explore the fossil fuel, coal, its geologic origins, its role in plate tectonics, and the implications of burning coal for climate change. The lab contains a virtual field ...

From 2018-2022, Plymouth State University, a predominantly undergraduate institution with no geology program but strong B.S. and M.S. programs in meteorology and environmental science ran a GeoPaths EXTRA project ...

Majors frequently "discover" the geosciences through introductory courses, yet the scientists featured there often reflects historical stereotypes of scientists (e.g. white, straight, cisgender male). ...

Relatively good data exist on the frequency of field-based coursework offered to upper division students in earth and environmental sciences nationally as well as the skills they aim to develop and foster in ...

This project conducted a series of alumni panel discussion videos on various topics with the goal of demystifying graduate school to undergraduates. The inspiration for this project came from undergraduate student ...

The Science Education Resource Center (SERC) website is BIG and has been growing for the last 20 years. SERC has worked in collaboration with over 250 projects resulting in 6,000+ teaching activities, 6,600+ ...

The connections between an individual's beliefs concerning climate change and their political ideology is well known by both researchers and the public. Understanding the causes and outcomes of those ...

The geoscience education research (GER) community began to coalesce as its own independent field in the 2000s, after significant groundwork done by "border crossers" in prior decades (NRC, 2012). By 2014, ...

Many geoscience departments are acutely aware of the exceptionally low racial and ethnic diversity among our geoscience students, faculty, and professional peers. Unfortunately, these demographics have stayed ...

Application of quantitative skills in geoscience courses is a source of frustration for many faculty and a significant barrier to students. One response is to remove quantitative content from geoscience courses. ...

Water is one of Earth's fundamental natural systems and is critical to sustain human existence. Water literacy is a key outcome for learners of all ages, who should understand how water interacts with both ...

The Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus is a framework that foregrounds food, energy, and water security, while responding to increasing human and natural pressures brought about by population growth and economic ...

Science classrooms are uniquely positioned for teaching and learning about Earth's climate system and Global Climate Change (GCC), as well as how both are studied scientifically, particularly using ...

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study is to better understand the lived experiences of geoscience students with learning disabilities in their undergraduate and graduate classes. Students with learning ...

The Building Engagement in Laboratories, Networking, and Peer Groups (BELONG) in STEM project is an NSF-funded Scholarships in STEM (S-STEM) program for high-achieving, low-income students. Our project model ...

Integrating water and wastewater systems (toilet systems) into geoscience courses highlights the relevance of human actions on the water, carbon, and nutrient systems. It also presents an opportunity to introduce ...

Producing new knowledge and inventions is an exciting journey that every researcher embarks upon and invests their time and energy into. However, emerging researchers and learners often lack scientific inquiry ...

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 ...

This session is designed for practitioners at various stages of experience with Scholarship of Teaching of Learning (SoTL), from those who are looking to incorporate SoTL in their classrooms to those who have data ...

Understanding and acceptance of the theory of evolution are crucial components of science literacy, and widespread non-acceptance of evolution may have far reaching policy consequences for human health, ...

This presentation will describe the integration of a no-cost, web-based, online game (Stormslam) in a meteorology-focused, general science course at Purdue University in Spring 2021. In Stormslam, players engage in ...

Educators work within a system that expects us to address the learning needs of all our students, which can be challenging, particularly given the status of funding, resources, and time available to us, it can ...

Students in the geosciences and other sciences may have few opportunities in their academic curriculum to think systematically about the individual and social values that influence their disciplinary pursuits. ...

Place- and field-based learning experiences have been shown to contribute to students' understandings of the earth as a complex system and strengthen their scientific identities. At the same time, ...

Accessibility and inclusivity in field geology have become increasingly important issues to address in geoscience education and have long been set aside due to the tradition of field geology and the laborious task ...

In 2015 when I started my career as an assistant professor in geology at Grand Valley State University, I resolved that I would disclose my learning disability (LD) to the students in each course that I taught, ...

Over the past 40-plus years of recruitment activities and tracking of racial demographics, there has been an obvious consistent under-representation of African Americans in the Geosciences, both as a field and for ...

For 30+ years the AMS Education Program has offered educators nationwide professional development opportunities in weather, water, and climate science. As a K-13 initiative, the Program exists to foster Earth ...

Geo-STEM learning ecosystems (GLE) are communities of transformation engaging educators and learners in the geosciences to address local geoscience issues by bringing together current research and place-based ...

Virtual Field Experiences (VFEs) are a growing supplement and gateway to traditional fieldwork in the geosciences. With VFEs becoming more accepted for use in college geoscience courses, how instructors find and ...

Concept inventories are fundamental in assessing and evaluating student knowledge and understanding across science disciplines. In the earth sciences, existing inventories measure student understanding of ...

Geoscience education relies on figures and diagrams to convey visual and spatial information to students, but the effectiveness of those images can be difficult to assess. Additionally, an individuals' ...

Student success in geology and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses can be negatively impacted by disconnects between professor expectations and student academic skills (Nicoll and ...

Metacognition is central to student learning, encouraging learners to be aware of what they are doing and why, and to use that awareness to make intentional adjustments to learn more effectively. Undergraduate ...

Spatial thinking skills are essential to student success in disciplines such as geology, atmospheric science, and geography. In atmospheric science, skills such as mental animation, disembedding, and perspective ...

Laboratory activities provide opportunities to engage undergraduates in the "hands-on" portion of introductory courses. We conducted a study in which 11 teaching assistants (TAs) were asked a series of ...