Developing Quantitative Activities for Upper Division Geoscience Students

Developing Quantitative Activities for Upper Division Geoscience Students was a workshop held at Carleton College in 2005 in Northfield, MN. The participants aimed to create a body of activities for use in teaching and strengthening the quantitative skills of upper division geoscience students. As a part of their work, the group developed some important resources that apply beyond their original context.

• Characteristics of Well-Designed Activities: The workshop participants developed a consensus around what characteristics made for particularly effective teaching activities, regardless of their quantitative component. A description of these traits along with their basis in the literature are presented.
• Review Criteria for Quantitative Activities: Since a part of the goals of the workshop was to review quantitative activities submitted by the participants themselves, the group brainstormed and developed a set of criteria that one could use to evaluate a given activity with regard to how effectively it addressed quantitative skills and literacy.

The workshop is summarized in a report published in EOS (Vol. 86, No. 39, 27 September 2005)