John McDaris

Science Education Resource Center (SERC)

Carleton College

Education Associate

Pronouns: he/him/his

507-222-5634, jmcdaris@carleton.edu
Curriculum Vitae (Acrobat (PDF) 244kB Feb24 25)

View John's Staff Profile

Project Leader, Webinar Leader, Workshop Leader, Website Contributor, Reviewer

Project Leader

Cultural Change in Geoscience (C-ChanGe) part of C-ChanGe
The Cultural Change in Geoscience (C-ChanGe) project works toward a vision of the future where all people at each stage of their career experience academic geoscience as a safe and welcoming environment where they feel empowered to learn and contribute without stifling their identities, and the community recognizes contributions from everyone. SERC leads the professional development of 2 cohorts of faculty change agents empowered to work in their own context to make successive, incremental changes, leading to positive cultural shifts within their home departments with the support of a community of practice made up of local and national peers. The project also raises the visibility of the many other groups working towards an inclusive geoscience discipline through a web-based network to support awareness, recognition, and connectivity of national partner projects working on geoscience cultural change.

Website Content Contributions

Activities (8), Conference Presentations (18), Other Contributions (9)

Activities (8)

Hurricanes and Heat Transfer part of EarthLabs for Educators:Hurricanes
The lab activity described here was created by John McDaris of SERC for the EarthLabs project. Summary and Learning Objectives In this activity students investigate how hurricanes transfer heat by conducting ...

show 7 more Activities

What Kind of Continental Margin am I? Active or Passive? part of MARGINS Data in the Classroom:MARGINS Mini-Lessons
Volcanoes, earthquakes, and topography reveal whether a continental margin is active or passive. In this activity, students use the GeoMapApp tool to work with earthquake, volcano, and topographic data to identify ...

Lab 2: Hurricane Anatomy part of EarthLabs for Educators:Hurricanes
The lab activity described here was created by John McDaris of SERC for the EarthLabs project. Summary and Learning Objectives Students view and explore a variety of different hurricane visualizations: movies of ...

Lab 1: Meteorological Monsters part of EarthLabs for Educators:Hurricanes
The lab activity described here was created by Martos Hoffman of TERC and John McDaris of SERC for the EarthLabs project. Summary and Learning Objectives In this introductory activity, students view and interpret ...

Lab 5: All About Air Pressure part of EarthLabs for Educators:Hurricanes
The lab activity described here was created by John McDaris of SERC for the EarthLabs project. Summary and Learning Objectives Students select a storm from the HURDAT database and create its track in the ...

Cycles of the Sun and Moon part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
This activity asks students to download sunrise and sunset data along with moon phase data and graph these data sets together in a spreadsheet in order to visualize the cycles of the seasons and the moon.

Hurricanes: Unit Overview part of EarthLabs:Hurricanes
In this EarthLabs module, students will do hands-on experiments and study hurricanes in satellite imagery and visualizations. They'll also explore over 150 years of storm data to find out when and where these storms occur. If students are studying hurricanes during hurricane season, they can monitor the position and status of storms in real time. Hurricanes can serve as an exciting entry point into understanding everyday weather, or a culminating topic for an Earth system or environmental science unit.

Hurricanes Unit Overview part of EarthLabs for Educators:Hurricanes
In this EarthLabs module, students will do hands-on experiments and study hurricanes in satellite imagery and visualizations. They'll also explore over 150 years of storm data to find out when and where these storms occur. If students are studying hurricanes during hurricane season, they can monitor the position and status of storms in real time. Hurricanes can serve as an exciting entry point into understanding everyday weather, or a culminating topic for an Earth system or environmental science unit.

Conference Presentations (18)

Supporting Interdisciplinary Teaching about the Earth for a Sustainable Future through the InTeGrate Project part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2018:Program:Poster Sessions:Wednesday
InTeGrate supports teaching about Earth in the context of sustainability across the curriculum through curricula development and strengthening programs to increase undergraduate students' Earth literacy and ...

show 17 more Conference Presentations

Four Years of Discovery Improvements for SERC website visitors part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2024:Program:Poster Sessions:Friday Poster Session
The Science Education Resource Center (SERC) hosts materials from more than 120 geoscience education projects. However, the project-focused nature of the SERC website means that information is siloed which presents ...

Advancing Discovery of DEIJ-Related Resources part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2022:Program:Poster Sessions:Wednesday Poster Session
The Compass project seeks to improve the discoverability of existing, high-quality Earth education resources by leveraging the technical infrastructure developed by the Science Education Resource Center at ...

Engaging your faculty colleagues in evidence-based practices using SAGE 2YC resources: Book clubs, journal clubs, and implementation groups part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2020:Program:Oral Sessions:Oral Session II
SAGE 2YC is a national network of 2YC geoscience faculty who use evidence-based strategies to improve students' academic success, broaden participation in STEM, and facilitate students' professional ...

SAGE 2YC Materials for Faculty Professional Development Workshops part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2019:Program:Poster Sessions:Wednesday
Over the course of the SAGE 2YC: Faculty as Change Agents project, the 2YC faculty change agent teams have run annual professional development workshops and events for other faculty in their regional networks. In ...

Synthesizing lessons for creating change in faculty, programs, institutions, and regional networks: SAGE 2YC Faculty as Change Agents part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2019:Program:Oral Sessions:Monday A
The 17 teams of 2YC faculty participating in the SAGE 2YC Faculty as Change Agents project have spent between two and four years working together to transform their teaching, their geoscience programs and ...

Designing Successful Student Field Experiences: Resources and Strategies part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2019:Program:Poster Sessions:Friday
Field experiences provide impactful learning and growth opportunities for students in STEM and allied fields. There are many benefits ascribed to instruction in the field, including opportunities for learning in ...

SAGE 2YC: Sustaining Faculty Learning part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2018:Program:Poster Sessions:Wednesday
In a continuing effort to provide two-year college (2YC) geoscience faculty with the resources they need to be agents of change at their institutions and in their regions, the Supporting and Advancing Geoscience ...

Working with and across networks to support institutional change. part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2018:Program:Poster Sessions:Friday
An advantage of multi-institutional networks of people working towards common goals is being able to draw from experiences across the networks and to share experience and successful practices from a variety of ...

Lessons from the InTeGrate Implementation Teams: Synthesizing Real-World Experience part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2017:Program:Oral Sessions:Monday B
The InTeGrate project supports the teaching of geoscience in the context of societal issues both within geoscience courses and across the undergraduate curriculum. The work of InTeGrate has included supporting 16 ...

Supporting and Advancing Geoscience Education in Two-Year Colleges (SAGE 2YC): Building a Foundation for Change through a Network of Regional Communities of Practice part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2017:Program:Poster Sessions:Friday
One goal of SAGE 2YC: Faculty as Change Agents is to develop regional communities that can promote a cycle of change through activities that allow members to share experiences, synthesize expertise, and document ...

For Higher Ed portal to Resources Supporting Change from Individual to Program scales part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2017:Program:Poster Sessions:Friday
Making and supporting changes in higher education at multiple scales presents challenges that are shared broadly by individuals and programs across institution types. It is important that we, as agents of change, ...

SAGE 2YC: Two-Year College Geoscience Faculty as Change Agents part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2016:Program:Poster Sessions:Thursday
The SAGE 2YC project is building a national network of self-sustaining local communities of two-year college (2YC) faculty, including adjunct instructors, from a broad range of geoscience fields including geology, ...

Drawing Diverse Students into your Class part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2016:Program:Oral Sessions:Friday A
Broadening the diversity of students learning about the Earth is of fundamental importance if society is to meet the resource and environmental challenges facing it. The perspectives of groups traditionally ...

Models of program – scale change: Common elements in the implementation of the InTeGrate design philosophy and teaching materials part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2016:Program:Oral Sessions:Wednesday A
Solving the Earth-related grand challenges facing society and building a sustainable future requires both an Earth literate public and a workforce that can bring geoscience to bear on tough societal issues. ...

Building Interdisciplinary Sustainability Programs part of Rendezvous 2015:Program:Abstracts
Understanding issues related to environmental problem-solving and sustainability requires background in natural systems and social systems as well as integrating information from diverse sources. Many students are ...

Broadening Access to STEM and Geoscience through Support for the Whole Student part of Rendezvous 2015:Program:Abstracts
Over the last decade, the percentage of students from underrepresented minorities (URM) graduating with geoscience degrees has increased dramatically. But progress has been faster across the whole of STEM and in ...

A Program Model for Engaging a Community: Supporting and Advancing Geoscience Education in Two-year Colleges part of Rendezvous 2015:Program:Abstracts
Supporting and Advancing Geoscience Education in Two-year Colleges (SAGE 2YC) is a multi-year national professional development program for geoscience faculty in two-year colleges (2YCs) that enabled broad and ...

Other Contributions (9)

Using Geophysics to Address Societally-relevant, Urban and Environmental Real-world Questions in Introductory-level Geoscience Courses part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2023:Program:Afternoon Mini-Workshops
Introducing Geophysics for Urban and Near-surface Applications (IGUANA) Recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce begins with attracting a diverse student population into the geosciences. The IGUaNA project, ...

show 8 more Other Contributions

Undergraduate Research in the First Two Years part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2022:Program:Afternoon Mini-Workshops
Undergraduate research experiences can be deeply impactful for student learning of content and skills as well as for identity development. Early exposure to authentic research has been shown to improve recruitment, ...

Designing and Running Effective Workshops part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2020:Program:Afternoon Workshops
The geoscience education community has made great strides over the last two decades in part because an increasing number of faculty have taken part in high-quality professional development opportunities around ...

Science Education Resource Center (SERC) part of Network of STEM Education Centers:Center Profiles
Engaging teaching activities. Effective pedagogy. Transformative workshops.

Developing Effective Web-Based Learning Resources in the Geosciences part of Web-Based Resources
The following pages contain information, activities, references and links to help faculty creating on-line teaching materials in the Geosciences. This site addresses how to begin the process of putting resources on the web, how to design the educational content of those resources and how to design and build the actual resource. You are encouraged to add to the discussion of the web resources provided here. There are places throughout the site where users can leave feedback and answer questions. User comments will be incorporated into later versions of this web site and future On The Cutting Edge workshops.

Monday A: Professional Development for Undergrads, Grads and Faculty & Broadening Participation part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2019:Program:Oral Sessions:Monday A
Skip to Main ContentSkip to Navigation Login Earth Educators' RendezvousNashville, TN, July 15-19, 2019 View the Program | Search the Program ...

Teaching for Diversity and Recruitment Strategies part of Rendezvous 2015:Program:Poster Sessions
See Related Oral Session w/ discussion @ 3:45pm, Thursday

Teaching For Diversity part of Rendezvous 2015:Program:Oral Sessions
See Related Poster Session

Teaching about Hazards in Geoscience part of Hazards
Major hazardous events and natural disasters provide geoscience educators with powerful opportunities to engage their students with class content and the general public with how the geosciences impact their ...