Instructor Stories and Adaptations

These resources describe how the module was adapted for use in different settings. We hope these stories inspire your own use of the module and give you insight into how to adapt the materials for your classroom.

From the Authors

Cynthia Fadem: Environmental Geology at Earlham College. This 25-person course utilized the module during the last two weeks of a 15-week semester. The course functions as an introduction to the geology major, but the vast majority of students take the course to fulfill general education (science and math) requirements. This course meets four times per week (one meeting is a three-hour laboratory) and completed the entire module, with four of the activities completed during two lab meetings.

Cindy Shellito: General Meteorology at University of Northern Colorado. The module was used over two weeks in an introductory meteorology course with 55 students in a lecture hall. Most of the students were enrolled in the course to satisfy their Liberal Arts Core curriculum requirement. The entire module was adapted to the course setting, and supplemental activities were incorporated into the weekly lab meeting, with activities 2.2 and 3.2 combined into one lab, and 4.2 and 5.2 combined into another lab activity.

Becca Walker: Introduction to Oceanography at Mt. San Antonio Community College. The module was used in an introductory oceanography course at a community college. The majority of the 38 students enrolled were nonscience majors taking the course to satisfy their General Education physical science requirement necessary for transfer. This was a lecture course held during an accelerated winter intersession in which a 16-week course is implemented in 6 weeks. Since the course lacked a separate lab section, the supplemental activities (2.2, 3.2, 4.2, and 5.2) were not used.

Additional Instructor Stories

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Laura Rademacher: Environmental Science for Informed Citizens at University of the Pacific
Laura Rademacher, University of the Pacific
My course is an introductory environmental science course. Over time, I've incorporated more opportunities for active learning in the classroom and students respond favorably to spending additional time on the topics they find most compelling. The incorporation of integrate modules has provided new opportunities for active learning in the classroom. Most of the modules lead students through case studies, many of which are focused on regions outside of California and those could broaden my students' perspectives on these issues.

Judi Roux: BIOL 1001: Biology and Society at University of Minnesota Duluth
Judi Roux, University of Minnesota-Duluth
Even though Biology and Society has a large student enrollment, I prefer that students are actively engaged with the course topics and with each other rather than always listening to a PowerPoint lecture. At the beginning of the semester, students were assigned to teams of four using the CATME Team-maker surveys at http://info.catme.org/ Students worked in these teams during lab activities and specific classroom activities. With my fall course, I began to implement case studies to introduce and engage students with required topics, so I appreciated that case studies were available for certain activities within the modules.

Alycia Lackey: Using Climate of Change in Bio 103: Saving Planet Earth at Murray State University
In a two-week module on climate change, I used Unit 6 Adapting to a Changing World to encourage students to think about responding to current and future consequences of climate change. The content in this unit strengthened students' understanding of public opinion, including their own opinion, on climate change as well as mitigation and adaptation response strategies.

Mark Abolins: Geol 1030 Introduction to Earth Science/Geol 1031 Introduction to Earth Science Lab at Middle Tennessee State University
Mark Abolins, Middle Tennessee State University
My course is introductory general studies Earth Science, taught in a flipped instruction format with a large amount of active learning during the "lecture" period. Transition from "traditional lecture" to "flipped instruction" happened during 2013-2014 through involvement in the Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) course redesign work group and the Tennessee Board of Regents Course Revitalization Initiative. Students use Pearson's "MasteringGeology" to complete pre-class assignments consisting of both publisher and original content, and they participate in active learning during the "lecture" period. A course response system (clicker remote and app system) is used to assess in-class learning and attendance.

Rachel Pigg: Using InTeGrate Materials in Survey of Life at Presbyterian College
Rachel Pigg, University of Louisville
My nonmajors biology students enjoyed the new content provided by three InTeGrate modules: (1) Interactions between Water, Earth's Surface, and Human Activity, (2) Climate of Change, and (3) A Growing Concern. Elements and exercises from all three were interleaved into existing course content, which greatly enhanced student engagement in lecture and lab.

Alison Hale: Using the Climate of Change Module in Foundations of Biology 2 at University of Pittsburgh-Main Campus
Alison Hale, University of Pittsburgh-Main Campus
I used unit 2 from the Climate of Change module in a large lecture biology course. The recitation sections of this class are smaller and consist of ~80 students. I use recitations to engage students in hands-on learning exercises that are more difficult to implement in the large lecture setting. This module served as a linker between our class units on evolution and ecology. My students were really interested in the module - they really enjoyed that they were able to select which dataset (temperature or precipitation) they wanted to work with, the exploratory nature of the questions, and the summary table at the end of the module.

Stefanie Kring: Using Climate of Change in Introduction to Environmental Sustainability at Clarkson University
Stefanie Kring, Clarkson University
Introduction to Environmental Sustainability (BY 115) is a course that is intended for non-science majors which provides a foundation in environmental science and sustainability. One of my goals for this course is for students to leave the course with a greater understanding of climate change, both natural and anthropogenic in origin. Many students have a basic understanding of climate change, but do not truly grasp the complexities. In this course, we begin with an overview of climate change, which allows students to relate it to other concepts presented thereafter (i.e. biogeochemical cycles, renewable energy, etc.). We then conclude the semester with a more in depth examination of climate change, which includes how it is monitored, long and short term climate variability, and impacts. This is the point in the semester when the Climate of Change module was implemented.

Also Related to Climate of Change

Video Introducing the Module (MP4 Video 321.2MB Jan31 17) During Spring 2016 undergraduate students at Pasadena City College, a two-year college in southern California, were videotaped while experiencing lessons from InTeGrate's Climate of Change module. The video includes commentaries from all three module authors. Significantly, the instructors shown using the module in the video, who used them in an Oceanography Lab course and an Environmental Science course, were not involved in the design of the module. They each learned about the activities using the module website and adjusted the module as fitted their needs.

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Introduction to InTeGrate Modules: Hands-on, data-rich, and socially relevant geoscience activities
Apr 10 2015 Download Webinar Slides (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 24.2MB Apr10 15) Click to view

Hands-on, data-rich, and socially relevant geoscience activities for 2YC classrooms: An introduction to InTeGrate modules
Feb 13 2015 Friday, Feb. 13, 2015 9-10 AM Pacific | 10-11 AM Mountain | 11 AM-12 PM Central | 12-1 PM Eastern This webinar has already taken place. View the webinar products. Convener: Elizabeth Nagy-Shadman (Pasadena City ...

Educating Skillful Visualizers
Mar 30 2018 Friday, March 30, 2018 10:00 am PT | 11:00 am MT | 12:00 pm CT | 1:00 pm ET Presenters: Kim Kastens (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) and Tim Shipley (Temple University) This webinar is part of a series ...

Teaching the Impacts of Human Carbon Emissions on the Atmosphere, Oceans, and Economy
Nov 17 2016 Next Webinar Biosphere and Critical Zone Wednesday, November 30th 10:00 am PT | 11:00 am MT | 12:00 pm CT | 1:00 pm ET Thursday, November 17th 10:00 am PT | 11:00 am MT | 12:00 pm CT | 1:00 pm ET Presenters: ...

Sustainability Across the Curriculum
Mar 2 2017 Sustainability is emerging as a central theme for teaching about the environment, whether it is from the perspective of science, economics, politics, or society. Teaching about sustainability creates an opportunity to connect classroom material to society. Camelia Kantor, Claflin University's InTeGrate Implementation Program leader, will discuss the importance of Earth Science content and awareness and how integrated and problem-based learning environments help contextualize the need for sustainability. Rachel Teasdale, CSU–Chico's Implementation Program leader, will discuss the Sustainability Pathway general education program and how data-rich and societally relevant teaching activities can be used in STEM and non-STEM courses. The webinar will include 30 minutes of presentations and 25 minutes of discussion. Participants are encouraged to both ask questions of the presenters and discuss their own experiences regarding sustainability across the curriculum.

Developing Graduate Students' Teaching Capacity with InTeGrate Teaching Materials
Aug 18 2016 Developing graduate students' teaching capacity is essential to instilling good teaching practices and beneficial teaching skills in future faculty. This webinar will provide an opportunity to hear from geoscience faculty and graduate students who have developed InTeGrate modules, led InTeGrate implementation training workshops, and adopted InTeGrate modules after participating in a training workshop. Anne Egger, an InTeGrate project leader, will discuss the InTeGrate training workshops she ran for graduate students and post-docs with the Stanford InTeGrate Implementation Program and she will give an overview of the Stanford implementation program. Megan D'Errico, a Research Specialist at San Diego State University, will talk about her experiences as a training workshop participant at Stanford University and her adoption of the InTeGrate module Climate of Change. Joy Branlund, from Southwestern Illinois College is an author of the Human's Dependence on Earth's Mineral Resources module and she will talk about the thinking behind the module and how it has worked in her courses. The webinar will include 30 minutes of presentations and 25 minutes of discussion. Participants are encouraged to both ask questions of the presenters and discuss their own experiences developing graduate students' teaching capacity.

Teaching Sustainability in an Interdisciplinary First-Year Seminar
Feb 9 2018 We, a geology professor and a sociology professor, will discuss our team-taught first-year seminar focused on environmental and social sustainability. In this course, we seek to increase students' understanding of the complex nature of sustainability in a consumer society. InTeGrate materials are invaluable in helping first-year students connect the natural science and the social science perspectives. During this webinar, we will discuss our course, the benefits of these modules for interdisciplinary learning, and the ways we modified them to be accessible for non-majors in their first semester at college. We will conclude by exploring ways that InTeGrate modules can contribute to interdisciplinarity in collaborative teaching models ranging from linked courses to team-taught courses. Participants are encouraged both to ask questions of the presenters and to discuss their own experiences using InTeGrate to link multiple perspectives.

Adapting InTeGrate Modules for Biology Courses and Online Courses
Mar 8 2017 InTeGrate Implementation Programs piloted InTeGrate teaching modules in a variety of disciplines and contexts to infuse teaching about Earth in a societal context, sustainability concepts, and active learning strategies throughout the curriculum. Faculty from the implementation programs commonly adapted the modules to their discipline and course. Amber Burgett, part of Wittenberg University's InTeGrate Implementation Program, will discuss adapting InTeGrate modules for a general education, non-majors Biology course and for an upper-level freshwater Ecology course to strengthen active learning opportunities in these courses. Sabrina Walthall, part of Mercer University's Implementation Program, will discuss adapting an InTeGrate module to an online, general education science course for adult learners. She will also present a template to help other faculty incorporate adapted InTeGrate materials into their courses. The webinar will include 30 minutes of presentations and 25 minutes of discussion. Participants are encouraged to both ask questions of the presenters and discuss their own experiences regarding adapting InTeGrate modules for their discipline or context.

Improving Climate Literacy Through your Undergraduate Course
Apr 7 2016 Next Webinar Teaching about Soils as a Critical Resource: Materials and Activities for your Classroom Thursday, April 21 12:00 pm Pacific | 1:00 pm Mountain | 2:00 pm Central | 3:00 pm Eastern Thursday, April 7, ...

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