Round Table Discussions
Afternoon Round Tables are open to all participants registered for that day (not reserved ahead of time).
Tuesday
How to Broaden your Teaching Experience as a Graduate Student
Moderator: Brendan Hanger (Colorado School of Mines)
Most grad students and post-docs get their first exposure to teaching in labs, especially for introductory students. Whilst this can be a great experience, those wanting to pursue an academic career will benefit from getting more experience in other aspects of teaching to become a stronger job candidate, especially for positions with stronger focus on teaching compared to research. Post-doctoral researchers can also find that funding rules limit their opportunities. This discussion will allow participants to share their experience and develop strategies to gain that experience as lecturer or instructor of record, in order to strengthen your preparation for an academic career.
Encouraging Data Literacy: Using large, publicly available datasets in the classroom
Moderator: Dax Soule, CUNY Queens College
Too frequently teachers desire access to readily available datasets to use within their lessons, but find professional websites arduous to navigate. Spend time with CUNY Queens College Assistant Professor, Dax Soule, exploring FREE RESOURCES from the SERC Project EDDIE web page. Insight on transforming research into practice by assisting teachers with finding & using, datasets from any publicly available source will be shared. In this round table presentation, methods and strategies to implement, modify and accommodate will be presented to use data to incorporate and improve data literacy usage in current lessons.
The AGU Bridge Program: How to get involved and why it matters
Moderator: Eva Kostyu (AGU)
The AGU Bridge Program started in 2019 and has grown to include over forty-five partner geoscience departments and more than forty students enrolled in graduate studies through the Bridge student application. This discussion will center around how the program engages both partner departments and students and the larger programmatic goals of creating a more equitable and inclusive environment in graduate geoscience education. Come learn about our current practices, progress so far, and ways to engage with the program for anyone within the geoscience community.
Ocean Health Projects for K-12 Geoscience Classrooms
Moderator:Rebecca Carnes (Smithville High School)
A review of activities that can be used to help students learn about the challenges that our oceans are facing right now due to climate change and other issues. Each activity incorporates data analysis, graphing elements, and research. Students are introduced to 3 main issues that affect the oceans including pollution, the absorption of CO2, and rising temperatures. Activities focus on what to do about plastics in our oceans, the decrease in pH and ocean acidification, and the problem of coral bleaching caused by rising temperatures. What is being done to combat these issues? What has been done in the last 10 years since we have been made aware of these problems? How do we as educators inform the current generation about these issues in order to create change? These activities are mostly utilized at the High School level but can be adapted for use at lower grade levels and post-secondary.
Professional Development for Higher Education Science Faculty that Improves Student Learning
Moderators: Peter C. Cormas (Pennsylvania Western University - California), Kyle Fredrick (Pennsylvania Western University - California), Min Li (Pennsylvania Western University - California), Louise Nicholson (California University of Pennsylvania), Sy Doan (RAND Corporation), Elizabeth Steiner (RAND Corporation)
Are you a higher education science faculty member who is or would like to create a professional development experience for your faculty that is most likely to impact student learning? In this roundtable, we will facilitate a discussion for those who are interested in designing professional development; are currently implementing or evaluating professional development; or would like to share their past experiences with designing, implementing, or evaluating professional development. We will also discuss how to create studies of professional development which measure student learning.
Sharing Resources to Promote Teaching Socio-scientific Issues
Moderator: Megan Plenge, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Many students learn about topics such as natural hazards, resources, and climate change from the media and their community before they enter an Earth or Environmental Sciences classroom. The media- or community- narrative around these topics may be value-driven rather than scientific. How does this impact student understanding, and how should this inform teaching? In addition to a broad discussion around this topic, we will identify useful resources from Teach the Earth and compile a google document of shared resources (lessons, readings, assignments) that can be used to explicitly teach about both the scientific issues and the communication/assimilation of knowledge.
Successfully preparing underserved communities for workforce in geoscience (STEM) career pathways and preparing workforce for diverse talent
Moderator: Loretta Williams Gurnell, SUPERGirls SHINE Foundation
It is predicted that the workforce deficit will be at least 85% STEM driven with specific skills and training needed to fulfill positions. Some pathways will consist of a two-year degrees, certifications, or a bachelor's degree. Others will need graduate degrees. Access to opportunities in these fields highly depends one's your zip code, access to educated schools, access to camps, access to scholarships, access to mentors, internships, access - access - access. So how can professors, community leaders and industry decision-makers come together to build a sustainable pipeline that meets the workforce demand while increasing diverse talent within the pipeline?
Friday
Strategies for Teaching Intro Earth Science to STEM Majors
Moderator: Brendan Hanger (Colorado School of Mines)
Many discussions about teaching introductory earth science focus on how to work with non-STEM majors but at a sizable number of institutions the majority, if not most students in an introductory class are STEM Majors (but not earth science majors), especially at institutions with significant engineering and agriculture programs. This roundtable serves as an opportunity for those teaching this audience to share their experiences and exchange strategies and ideas. This is especially valuable as at many places these other STEM Majors are big pool of potential (and actual) recruits into the earth sciences, but they enter with different capabilities to non-STEM majors (e.g. stronger math abilities).
Advancing JEDI across NAGT: A Community Discussion
Moderator:Samuel Nyarko (Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis) and Susan Kelly (University of Connecticut and Connecticut DOE)
The NAGT DEI committee continues in its quest to broaden the diversity and participation of our members. Please join the committee as we seek to solicit for community ideas on how we can advance JEDI across our association to make it attractive to diverse group of people, especially systemically non-dominant (SND) groups.
Three-dimensional teaching with computer-based models in the Earth science classroom
Moderator: Stephanie Seevers (Evergreen High School)
Because Earth and space science phenomena are too large, physically and temporally, to fit into a traditional classroom setting, it can be challenging for teachers to implement good inquiry-based labs. In the post-COVID classroom, however, the ability for students to engage in authentic investigations using computer-based models and computational analysis of real-world data are increasing.
AMS Education: Hurricanes
Moderator: Kristen Batko (American Meteorological Society)
This roundtable will begin with a summary of courses and PD offered through AMS Education. Then, we will transition to discuss many resources (including, but not limited to, NOAA, AMS, NWS) centered around hurricanes. Teachers will have time to explore these resources and begin to develop a unit featuring many NGSS Earth Science Standards with hurricanes as the grounding phenomenon.
Strengthening Graduate-Undergraduate Student Mentorship
Moderator: Alexis Lopez, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Graduate students often mentor undergraduates doing undergraduate theses or working in research labs. Graduate students can play important roles in mentoring these students. We will discuss navigating co-mentoring a student with your advisor/PI, considering how much time to devote to mentorship, and marketing your research to and providing support for diverse students.
Cosplay for Science: Science Storytelling in the Classroom
Moderator: Gabriel-Philip Santos, Alf Museum of Paleontology
Pop culture media and narratives are often learner's first introduction to scientific concepts and can influence future engagements with science in educational settings. Educators can harness this by incorporating immersive storytelling practices into their lessons and combining it with familiar pop culture staples. The Cosplay for Science Initiative works to develop and share such practices.