From the Ursinus College course catalogue: "This course examines the current state of knowledge about the Earth and investigates the forces and process that shape it. Topics include the formation of the Earth and solar system, the materials that compose the Earth, the forces that currently act on, around, and within the planet, and the relationship of these forces to processes and features we observe and/or experience at the Earth's surface. To address complex and dynamic geologic processes, this course utilizes knowledge and methods from several different disciplines in addition to geology, including biology, math, physics, and chemistry."
Modified slightly from the S. Willig syllabus (see above) Geology: The Earth around Us is an introductory physical geology course that provides an overview of this fascinating and important field of study. It begins with a discussion of plate tectonics, the unifying theory in geology, and a review of earth materials including minerals and rocks (igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic). The class then investigates processes driven by the internal energy of the Earth including volcanism and earthquakes and those driven by the Sun which power the water cycle, including landslides and subsidence, river flooding, and coastal flooding. Arid landscapes, glaciation, geologic time, evolution, and global climate change are also discussed. Students prepare and present individual case histories of different geologic disasters to deepen their understanding of these processes that prove hazardous when humans are present. Students work on developing topographic and geologic map-reading skills. The course culminates when they apply material learned during the semester to individual presentations about an aspect of geology near their home area. The ultimate goal of the course is to increase awareness of the critical role that geology plays in our lives.
A Success Story in Building Student Engagement
The Humans' Dependence on Earth's Mineral Resources module was used within "Geology: The Earth around Us," an introductory physical geology course that caters to (primarily senior) non-science majors needing a science lab course to complete their core curriculum. Although it did not fully replace it, the module helped to make the "rocks and minerals" portion of our geology course much more interdisciplinary and relevant to the students. It also incorporated aspects of human impact on the environment as part of this unit, instead of being added on as a separate component later in the semester, and thus led to a closer association of geologic processes, human needs/actions, and environmental and human impact. The students seemed to actively engage in the material, completing the homework assignments as well. As the module was run near the very start of the semester, the hands-on and group work activities helped set the stage for classroom participation.
Our observations noted that the group work aspect of the module helped the students form closer and more interactive relationships with each other, which continued throughout the rest of the semester.
My Experience Teaching with InTeGrate Materials
The module was introduced at the end of the first week of classes and took two weeks to complete. These materials vary greatly in style from day to day, which helped to keep the students engaged during class time. Because we had two weeks of class plus lab periods, we were able to complete all of the units and their optional materials. Although I think we asked a lot of the students for those two weeks, they certainly rose to the challenge.
We used the module near the very beginning of this introductory physical geology course. From there, we worked for the next two weeks to fully complete Units 1 through 6 and took an additional class period for students to present their overarching mineral resource concept maps. We used the module to supplement and replace segments of the "rocks and minerals" portion of the course, maintaining some of the "traditional" activities, such as the mineral and rock identification labs, but replacing lectures about mineral and rock formation and related processes. The module also added a segment on "human impact" in relation to mining (and concepts of sustainability) that we may never have covered otherwise. Because we completed this module very close to the start of the semester, we believe that the required amount of student interactions (small group work with various partner combinations, whole-class discussions, presentations, etc.) resulted in a positive class dynamic that continued throughout the rest of the semester, even though the style of the course changed.
Some overall recommendations:
Be sure to remember to review the concepts from the previous unit and tie it into the following unit to provide context and flow to the units within the module. This also helps students reflect on, and draw connections about, the material they have been covering.
It helps to communicate a time limit for any particular activity before the activity begins.
Plan ahead to accommodate students who naturally work at a slower pace.
The instructor should take time to become comfortable with the material and the progression of the activities before leading the module.
Remind students that it is very important to complete not only the homework assignments but also the readings prior to coming to class.
It's helpful to be walk around the classroom to be available to answer student questions as they are completing the group work assignments.
Provenance: Leah Joseph, Ursinus College Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.
We completed Unit 1 in approximately 60 minutes (for external reasons we had to cut class 15 minutes short that day).
Activities were completed in order.
The students had completed a "traditional" mineral identification lab just prior to the start of the module.
We were not able to complete the wrap-up discussion for Activity 3, and there were still a few students working on the activity itself, so we had the students finish up over the weekend and completed the discussion at the beginning of the following class (lab period) as well as the post-unit homework activity discussion.
We forgot to do the overall introduction to Unit 2 (it would have provided better context for the unit), but jumped right into the activity on REEs (Activity Option 2).
Students struggled in creating their first concept map of the module.
We asked groups to draw their concept maps on the board and explain them to the rest of the class.
We asked for student volunteers to tell the class about their AML site from the pre-unit homework, which led to a discussion of overall impressions of these legacy mines, leading easily into the next part of the unit.
We completed the muffin mining activity, with groups of about 4 students per muffin, with a number of different "tools."
We did not tell them whether to be careful in the mining or not, so some groups were and some were not. This helped discussion about successful recovery (and successful remediation) when groups compared the percentages they wrote on the board at the front of the room.
We should have spent more time linking this activity more directly to the background reading for the unit and the PowerPoint.
We had an entire 75-minute class period for the students to complete the second activity for Unit 3, so all groups did all three sections (although in a different order).
We assigned students to groups (3 students per group) instead of letting them choose their own groups, so that they would be forced to interact with more than the few students who always sat near them. (We continued to do this for future activities as well.)
Most students seemed to be able to handle the math, or at least, one person in the group could and would then explain it to the others (peer education!).
In discussion about the activity at the end of the unit we also asked the students about mines/mining in general, if they had ever visited a mine, and the relationships between geology, wanting/needing products, and the consequential need to mine.
The students completed the post-unit homework and it was reviewed at the beginning of the next class period.
Some student volunteers showed examples of their soda can concept maps to the rest of class.
This worked well as we could then re-discuss the qualities a concept map needed to have by noting some of the stronger examples. This also allowed the students to realize that it was OK for concept maps to look different from each other.
We started with the first activity to review the concepts of sedimentary processes, including passing out Nestle Crunch bars (if students wanted them) to actually do an activity similar to that described (as a hypothetical).
We completed Activity 2 on Sand Mining, watching the five-minute Dupont video (listed in the References and Resources section of the activity sheet) as a class at the start of the activity. After the video we briefly discussed how different mining can look in various types of environments and the assorted challenges of reclamation in these different types of environments.
Activity 3 (Salt Mining) became homework, the results of which we discussed at the beginning of the next class period.
Since we had full lab period, we completed a "traditional" sedimentary rock during the next lab period (just prior to starting Unit 5).
We completed the "Gold" option (Activity Option 2).
The unit extended over two different class periods (the end of lab period plus a full class period later than day).
We explained the jigsaw concept and started students on their Part I assignments. They completed these before the end of the lab period (within 10 to 15 minutes).
We asked students to bring their laptops to the afternoon class for Part II.
When we reconvened for the afternoon class, we reexplained the jigsaw concept and broke the students up into their Part II groups (about 4 students/group).
We asked groups to prepare a PowerPoint at the same time as the paper (they delegated tasks within their groups).
Groups started to present with about 15 minutes left of a 75-minute class; we needed to delay the rest of the presentations to the following class.
In this "extra" class of the module, we asked the students to briefly present the overarching concept maps that they had been working on over the two-week module period (in addition to finishing up the presentations from Unit 6).
These (Unit 6 wrap up and presenting their concept maps) plus wrap-up discussion took an entire 75-minute class.
While they presented, students held up their concept maps (and then passed them around) or projected an image of them on the screen.
When describing their concept maps, students often mentioned that they found information that was particularly interesting or related to material we had covered in the module.
Assessments
Many module components provided opportunities for both formal and informal assessment of student learning.
Discussions and presentations of work in front of the class helped us assess general student comprehension of the material.
Because there are many pieces to this assignment, it was not feasible for us to grade every question for credit. Instead we graded most of the materials for "reasonable completion/effort" and more specifically graded a few other parts of the module.
The overarching assessments (concept map and two test questions) were helpful at the end of the module in assessing student learning.
Even if items were not graded for more than "reasonable completion/effort," reading through the students' answers gave insight into their comprehension of the ideas and the material.
Outcomes
I had hoped that by using this module students would:
be able to better connect geological concepts with not only the world around them overall but also with our own actions and decisions and the complexity of issues surrounding decisions about sustainable behavior.
be able to understand enough about rocks and minerals and the processes that form them to replace the traditional unit entirely.
find the content more meaningful and thus more memorable.
be actively engaged in the class and the material, as facilitated by the meaningful content as well as the active learning style of the activities.
For the most part, we found that:
students were activity engaged in the material during the class time. This was particularly noticeable when the class went back to a more lecture-based style and the interaction with the students decreased.
a number of students expressed (out loud) an interest in the material they were learning, particularly when we asked them to present. During presentations of their mineral resource concept map, we often heard comments similar to "another interesting thing I learned is" or "oh, and here's a cool fact." Students also sometimes asked questions that indicated that they were thinking about the concepts outside of class time.
the group work activities and the sharing of activity results to the rest of the class seemed to create an expectation of continued class involvement that lasted for the rest of the semester.
students reacted to the concepts in the material. For example, there were some comments similar to: "Wait, we must have calculated this wrong. There can't be that much waste created!"
students did not score as well on the assessment test questions regarding geological concepts as I would have liked. We have modified the module since we ran this pilot, so it might be different the next time we run the module. We do need to figure out if there are any mineral and rock concepts that we feel we still need to cover in some form or more deeply.
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