Workshop Program

Jump down to: Wednesday | Thursday | Friday

Workshop Goals

The goals of this workshop are to identify:

Current best practices in integrating geoscience and engineering education, including addressing the need for sustainable engineering,
Geoscience education needs of engineers, engineering education needs of geoscientists, and new approaches to meet those needs,
Barriers to increased geoscience education in engineering,
Ways to encourage increased diversity in engineering related to geoscience,
Potential topics for new interdisciplinary courses or course modules and materials that could be integrated into existing engineering courses, and faculty interested in developing them.

Wednesday, March 6

5:00 PM - Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum

Welcoming remarks, workshop goals, introductions - John Taber, Paul Santi

6:00 Dinner

7:00 Move to Calvary Church

7:15 Keynote address - Breaking out of the Silo: Training a new breed of Geoengiscists (Acrobat (PDF) 4.4MB Mar6 13) - Terri Hogue, School of Mines

Engineering and the Geosciences - Envisioning a Sustainable Future

This session will address the combination of geoscience and engineering that will be needed in the workforce of the future to create a sustainable future.

Panel Discussion followed by group discussion

Panel: Thalia Anagnos, Joel Aquino (synthesis notes)
How do we get students to think in terms of flexibility/adaptability, what we do today is not what we'll be doing 5 or 10 years from now?
What training did you receive as a student (both academic and beyond academic) that allowed you to be flexible in your career?

8:45 Conclude

Thursday, March 7

Topics of the day:

What are the challenges to communicating between the geoscience and engineering cultures?
How are we currently creating cross-disciplinary courses and how do we do it in the future?

8:00 Continental breakfast- Calvary Church

8:30 Overview of the InTeGrate project (PowerPoint 1MB Mar6 13) and of the day -Cathyrn Manduca

8:45-10:00Challenges we face integrating the engineering and geoscience cultures

Introduction: Challenges in Integrating Engineering and Geoscience Cultures (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 535kB Mar7 13) - Paul Santi
Small group discussions and report out using workspace pages

What are the major societal challenges that need cross-disciplinary approaches?
How do we get students as well as faculty to value cross-disciplinary communication?

10:00 Break

10:15-11:45Panel discussion of course-level examples in geoscience and engineering

Panel: Laurel Goodell, Gigi Richard, Kevin Amende
Presentations of successes and challenges faced, followed by a group discussion of what is working and the challenges across the examples

Reinventing the Introductory Geology Course at Princeton University (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 1.3MB Mar7 13) - Laurel Goodell
Accidentally Teaching Engineering to Science Majors (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 1.1MB Mar7 13) - Gigi Richard

Natural Resources of the West Water and Drought at Colorado Mesa course description – from Gigi Richard

Course-level Examples of Geoscience in "Mechanical" Engineering (PowerPoint 9.5MB Mar7 13) - Kevin Amende

Montana State EcoSmart House Project - from Kevin Amende

Show related resources

Service Learning in the Geosciences from On the Cutting Edgeprovides information about how to design and implement service learning projects in geoscience courses and includes a set of examples that can be used as is or adapted to your classroom.

Service Learning from Pedagogies in Action describes what service learning is, why it is important, and how it can be used in the classroom. It also provides examples of projects from a variety of disciplines and related resources.

Math you Need this project seeks to help remediate mathematics for introductory geoscience students through student-centered, online, asynchronous tutorials. Each topic is presented in a geoscience context with student pages that (1) introduce the concept and present an algorithm for solving problems, (2) a set of practice problems with worked answers, and (3) provide an opportunity for students to show what they learned with an online quiz.

11:45-12:45 Lunch- Calvary Church

12:45-1:45 Bringing real world examples and experiences into the classroom

Introduction: Bringing Real World Experiences and Examples into the Classroom (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 6.3MB Mar7 13) - Anne Ronan
Table discussions and report out using workspace pages

Separated into class topics (e.g. hydro, hazards, environmental, civil engineering, mineral resources, global change)

Show Related Resources

1:45-2:15 Challenges and potential solutions for developing integrated activities -Vince Cronin, Horacio Ferriz, Francis Jones

Challenges and Potential Solutions for Developing Integrated Activities (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 13.9MB Mar7 13) - Vince Cronin
Field Trips (PowerPoint 3.8MB Mar7 13) -Horacio Ferriz
Integrated Activities and Challenges of Assessing "Higher level" Thinking Skills (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 334kB Mar7 13) - Francis Jones

2:15-3:15 Share examples of integrated activities and develop a list of challenges and needed modules and/or courses using workspace pages

Grouped by student audience (eg. civil engineers, environmental engineers, geoscience students, intro students)

3:30-4:00 Report outs of challenges and needed modules

Generate proposal team topics for modules/courses

4:00-5:25 Working groups: Develop potential proposals for new course modules

5:25-5:30 End of Day Plenary and workshoproadcheck assessment

6:00 Dinner at Table Mountain Inn

Friday, March 8

Topics of the day:

How do we integrate sustainability principles into our courses?
How do we collectively provide the education needed for the future across disciplinary boundaries? For all students?

8:00 Continental breakfast- Calvary Church

8:30-8:40 Overview of the day - John Taber

8:45-9:45 Panel: Strategies for Integrating Geoscience and Engineering for a sustainable future

Panel: Brenda Bowen, Steven Burian, Daniel Morgan
Discussion (small groups at tables) of barriers and opportunities for integrating sustainability into courses
Bridging the Disciplinary Divide with Sustainability (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 3.6MB Mar8 13) - Steve Burian
Sustainability Challenges and Opportunities (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 516kB Mar8 13) - Dan Morgan

9:45 -10Break

10-10:45 Opportunities for working together to increase diversity in geoscience and engineering