Alexandra Davatzes

Introduction to Planetary Mapping part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
This is an introduction to photogeologic/geomorphologic mapping of a planetary surface. The goal of this project is to help students learn the components of a geologic map and try to use all of their undergraduate ...

Introduction to JMARS part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
This is an introduction to using JMARS. It is a bit of a "cookbook" for getting students comfortable with the different things you can do in JMARS, such as adding different visual datasets with ...

Feedback Loops part of GET Spatial Learning:Teaching Activities
This assignment requires students to use analogical reasoning to identify the key attributes, the causal structure, that make a feedback loop positive (by amplifying/accelerating the effect) or negative (by ...

Is this feedback loop positive or negative? part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
The Feedback Loop Sorting activity is designed to capture student understanding of feedback loops as a general causal pattern that can occur in various contexts throughout nature and in human-made systems. Students ...

Intervening in a Feedback Loop part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
Teaching students to identify leverage points within a system empowers them to think critically about the root causes of any type of systemic problem and probe more deeply into feedback loop thinking. By engaging ...

Using Classroom Response Systems for Research on Learning part of GET Spatial Learning:Blog
This blog post page discusses leveraging classroom response systems (clickers) in undergraduate science education for both enhancing active learning and conducting research on student conceptual understanding, highlighting techniques like formative assessment, peer instruction, and iterative prediction with immediate feedback to refine mental models.

Using Analogies to Teach in the Geosciences part of GET Spatial Learning:Blog
This educational blog page explores the use of analogies as a pedagogical tool in geoscience instruction, discussing their cognitive benefits, structural alignment principles, potential pitfalls like reinforcing misconceptions, and offering a curated list of discipline-specific analogies—such as layer cakes for stratigraphy and lava lamps for mantle convection—while inviting community contributions and emphasizing evidence-based teaching practices.

Learning to Form Accurate Mental Models part of GET Spatial Learning:Blog
This blog page from SERC's GET Spatial Learning project highlights an Eos article by Davatzes, Gagnier, Resnick, and Shipley on developing accurate mental models in geoscience education, emphasizing cognitive strategies like gesture use in learning spatial concepts.

Understanding feedback loops to approach systems-level thinking part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2024:Program:Oral Sessions:Monday Oral Session A
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 ...

Creating Harmonies Against Climate Change (CHANT) part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2024:Program:Oral Sessions:Thursday Oral Session A
Climate change has become an increasingly pressing issue, both to scientists and the public. While adults grapple with their own concerns, children are also experiencing eco-anxiety, and studies show that children ...

Why is teaching and learning about feedback loops hard? part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2020:Program:Oral Sessions:Oral Session II
Feedback loops provide a powerful explanatory framework for analyzing important Earth and environmental processes, such as climate change and predatory/prey balance. Our pilot research and review of the literature ...

Field Trip: Environmental Monitoring at the Ambler Field Station part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2024:Program:Saturday Events
The Ambler Field Station leverages the 187-acre Ambler Campus and Arboretum as a living laboratory and outdoor classroom, providing access to a diversity of natural habitats including forests of different ages and ...

Wrapping your Head around Environmental Problems by Leveraging Feedback Loop Thinking part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2024:Program:Morning Workshops:Wrapping your Head around Environmental Problems by Leveraging Feedback Loop Thinking
Feedback loops (FL) are a powerful concept for Earth educators in the 21st century, because positive/reinforcing feedback loops underlie many environmental problems, while negative/balancing feedback loops underlie ...

Teaching and Learning About Feedback Loops part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2021:Program:Morning Workshops:Teaching and Learning About Feedback Loops
Feedback loops (FLs) are a powerful concept for Earth educators in the 21st century. Reinforcing (aka "positive") feedback loops underlie many environmental problems, including climate change and ...