Training undergraduate students in hydrogeology is challenging as students grapple with complex content in a three-dimensional, unobservable, subsurface space. In a prior study with novice to expert hydrogeologists, we found that two spatial thinking skills (visual penetrative ability and working with multiple frames of reference) predicted performance on a contaminated site characterization task. Our current work involves observing and interviewing student groups in introductory hydrogeology courses to see how they use the spatial thinking skills we previously identified. We video recorded nine groups of hydrogeology students as they completed the contaminated site characterization task, which involved constructing a cross-section, contouring a potentiometric surface, completing a three-point problem, and contouring a contaminant plume. We created manipulatives for students to use as they shared their thinking and demonstrated spatial relationships related to the site, the subsurface, groundwater flow, and the contaminant plume. We coded the interviews for student struggle — both spatial and conceptual — as well as for how students resolved their confusion. Common struggles included conflating topography with hydraulic head, conflating topography with contaminant concentrations, conceptual difficulty with confining units, conceptual difficulty with the nature of the potentiometric surface, procedural challenges with drawing contours, and integrating multiple two-dimensional maps into a coherent three-dimensional mental model. Students addressed these challenges with heuristics, by using learned procedures, by relying on naïve mental models, and through peer conversations that helped them grapple with the spatially complex content. In many instances, discourse between peers was especially helpful, particularly when a peer used gestures and manipulatives to demonstrate spatial relationships. This line of inquiry has proven especially fruitful for understanding how students make sense of spatially complex content in hydrogeology and may provide useful insight for hydrogeology instructors who want to better support student learning.

Density tanks can be a teaching tool in meteorology and oceanography classes to support learning fundamental concepts by modeling how fluids of different densities behave when combined. For example, density tanks can model Mediterranean outflow, weather fronts, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, and internal waves. We worked with over 40 students in individual semi-structured, interviews and used contrasting colored water of different densities (hot v cold, and salty v fresh) to collect their predictions about fluid behavior when a barrier between two density fluids was raised, and capture their sense making after seeing the process. To analyze the interview data, we used emergent coding of participant sketches and the transcribed interviews. Our initial findings are that student predictions were almost evenly split between horizontal stratification, vertical stratification, and complete mixing. To better understand how mixing occurred and the time scale, we collected a second round of data, which confirmed students have poor mental models of persistent horizontal fluid stratification by density. Our results suggest that many students arrive in courses with inaccurate conceptions of fluid behavior and what these students grasp from common classroom demonstrations may be quite different from what instructors expect or assume. Everyday experiences with turbulent mixing, such as adding creamer to coffee, playing in swimming pools, and even popular social media seem to lead to an assumption that fluids exist as homogenous bodies with uniform characteristics throughout. Students' tendency to reason from these experiences serves students poorly when applied to large-scale fluid-Earth processes. We suggest that efforts to scaffold student learning and promote conceptional understanding before moving to more complex fluid behavior will develop deeper student understanding of fluid-Earth processes.

Spatial thinking skills are essential to student success in disciplines such as geology, atmospheric science, and geography. Previous work on spatial thinking in the atmospheric sciences has demonstrated that skills such as mental animation, disembedding, and perspective taking have been shown to be important for interpreting, understanding, and predicting the four-dimensional atmosphere. However, when students develop and build on such skills as they progress through the meteorology curriculum is unknown. In this study, the Spatial Thinking Abilities Test (STAT) is used to quantify the extent of spatial thinking abilities in undergraduate students enrolled in courses required for the meteorology major at a large public university in the southeastern United States. Using a subset of 12 multiple choice questions, STAT is administered twice a semester in each course as a pre-test and post-test. Starting in Spring 2022 continuing through Spring 2023, data was collected from students across 10 courses. This presentation will discuss semester-level gains in spatial thinking and provide comparisons in spatial thinking abilities based on various demographic subgroups, including gender, major, and level of expertise in meteorology. Performance on questions testing specific spatial thinking skills will also be described. Finally, to characterize the progression in spatial thinking abilities, students who completed the STAT over multiple semesters will be identified and followed through each administration of the test. The long-term goal of this study is identify where improvements can be made in the undergraduate meteorology curriculum to enhance the success of all students.

Systems-level thinking and analysis, where a problem is viewed broadly as a whole rather than as its parts, is a necessary skill when attempting to solve systemic problems; one, however, which students can struggle with. One way to support students' systems thinking is to scaffold understanding of feedback loops, systems where an initial action occurs and the subsequent output either amplifies or diminishes that initial input. Feedback loops are a foundational and transdisciplinary concept seen across academic disciplines, including Earth sciences and the social sciences. By identifying what kind of feedback loop is present in a system and whether its outcome is desirable, students can identify potential points of intervention – so-called "leverage points" (Meadows, 1999) – to alter or interrupt the loop. We designed multiple undergraduate assignments aimed to help students identify, analyze, and alter feedback loops. One assignment, an analogical reasoning assignment, used mutual alignment of feedback loops from different disciplines to highlight the basic components and structure of a feedback loop. This was designed to teach students about the basic differences in positive and negative feedback loops and dispel the notion that positive/negative refers to the desirable/undesirable outcomes. In a follow-up essay assignment, students were asked to identify and alter an existing feedback loop utilizing Meadows' leverage points. To assess these assignments, we developed qualitative coding frameworks for analysis of both assignments. Students aligned systems by focusing on four aspects: behavior, structure, outcome, and discipline. The framework for assessment of the essay assignment focused on causal statements, change statements, and interconnectedness. Analysis of essays after explicitly teaching feedback loop thinking found greater use of terminology related to interconnectedness. These frameworks offer educators guidance on how to design assignments that strategically target understanding feedback loops.

'Making' in STEM education promotes project-based learning and engineering design, encourages creativity, and, in some cases, can increase the engagement of marginalized students. Our research examines the legitimacy of using 'making' to engage traditionally marginalized students using survey data indicating student excitement for and experience with 'making' prior to participation in a making-based project in introductory geoscience. Student status as Pell Grant recipients, first-generation college students, and/or transfer students were used to categorize at-risk and/or marginalized students into attribute groups based on the number of categories they fit into. Data from a survey conducted by Plenge et al. 2021 was used to compare the experience and excitement of students within these groups (n=265) with non-marginalized students (n=801). Statistical analyses were conducted using JASP and Excel to differentiate between attribute groups and the non-attribute student population. The participants' demographics in this project represented the incoming student body population, indicating possible generalizability. Preliminary findings demonstrate that transfer students consistently reported higher experience scores when compared to the other attribute groups and the non-attribute population. Transfer students had significantly more experience with "taking something apart to see how it works" than non-attribute students, with an effect size of .73. Other findings suggest variability in 'making' experience in other attribute groups compared to the non-attribute population. Our interpretation of the observed variation in 'making' experiences in these attribute groups is informed by a theoretical framework categorizing all 'making' into necessity, creative, and academic types. We infer that higher experience scores reported by transfer students are illustrative of the diverse lived experiences of students with additional barriers that shape their interest in, experience with, and perceptions towards making. This research aims to contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) discourse in geoscience education by connecting academic making with student experiences and excitement.

Geo-STEM learning ecosystems (GLEs) are complex and evolving communities of practice. By integrating geoscience, STEM education, and social science research paradigms, GLEs engage people in addressing local geoscience issues. While GLEs are a relatively newly named construct, they have emerged organically in several situations. Organizations that cultivate GLEs are tapping into over 100 years of research in experiential and community learning that recognize the importance of place-based and problem-based learning. In this presentation, I will (1) review the theoretical foundations of GLEs, (2) identify the inputs, processes, and outputs of GLEs, and (3) make recommendations for the creation, study, and evaluation of GLEs. My goal is to inspire researchers and practitioners to cultivate GLEs in their communities, across sectors, and with teachers and informal educators because GLEs have the potential to increase awareness of the role of geoscience in STEM and communities' well-being.