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The Teaching Quantitative Skills in the Geosciences website has not been significantly updated since 2011. We are preserving the web pages here because they still contain useful ideas and content. But be aware that the site may have out of date information.
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Developing Quantitative Activities for Upper Division Geoscience Students

Initial Publication Date: December 10, 2009

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)