Part 1: Ready-to-use teaching activities

During the winter and spring of 2021, eleven 2YC geoscience faculty members -- including six SAGE 2YC Change Agents -- participated in the NSF-funded project URGE: Unlearning Racism in Geoscience. One aspect of this project was putting ideas into action. We have assembled a collection of teaching activities for incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion in geoscience courses. Many of these activities are also suitable for, or could be adapted to, other STEM courses, and they are appropriate for introductory geoscience courses at any institution of higher education. In a follow-up Musing ("Part 2"), we will share a list of resources for developing additional teaching activities.

Teaching activities from the URGE 2YC pod

• Inclusivity Survey from Megan Jones: One thing I do the first week of class is a short (4 question) survey about inclusivity. I need to know what each particular group of students sees, believes, thinks about what an inclusive classroom is like. When I get the surveys back I go through them and list what is true for the class. Then I present it to the class and tell them that this is how the class/classroom will function and they have determined 90% of it.
• Decolonizing science discussion from Kaatje Kraft: I start every quarter discussing a portion of this blog post on Decolonising Science, by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, to help students think about what it means to decolonize science and why that might be important, particularly in the geosciences. We revisit the concept throughout the quarter.
• Process of science, history of geology, and historical exclusion from Kaatje Kraft, Bill Bryson's a Short History of Nearly Everything's passage about how geology emerged as a science (pgs. 64-67), explicitly points out that geology was historically an upper-class white male endeavor. Students read it as part of their introduction to the process of science - where they read the article and then I ask them to map out the process that the scientists (primarily focusing on Hutton) went through in order to recognize geology as a science using this diagram about how science works. I use this as a tool to help them delve more deeply into the reading, as a pathway to lecture about the history of geology but also discuss who was included and not included in those conversations (which then brings me back to the decolonization of science conversation we have on day one).
• A Toast to a Scientist: Celebrating Identity and Accomplishments from Laura Guertin: To bring attention to a more inclusive population of scientists and to help students develop their own science identity, students are assigned to write a speech that could be given as a "toast" at an event honoring that scientist. The toast, from the viewpoint of an individual identified by the instructor or as the student themself, can be completed as an individual or group project and submitted as text or audio.
• Climate, Climate Change, and Racism from Kaatje Kraft: Students engage in a discussion about climate change by both watching videos and reading an article to learn about the science behind climate change and some of the impacts of our warming climate. They then post their reflections, including at least one question, to a class discussion board. They also respond to at least two of the posts from their peers, citing evidence in their responses.
• Flooding, Flood Risks, and What Populations Are Impacted from Kaatje Kraft: In this lab, students learn about four different types of flood: flash floods, regional floods, storm surges, and tsunami. They then explore the human experience of flooding and who is impacted the most by flooding in general and locally in the state of Washington (where I teach and they live).
• The Dark Side of Mineral Mining from Karen Helgers: In my mineral unit, I provide articles about mining and Indigenous Americans. Students answer questions about the impact of specific mining projects on the environment and specifically, the Native Americans in the region. The articles outline the Native American response to the mining projects. Students choose one of the articles to read. I provide a long list of questions from which they can choose.
• Diversity and Careers in the Geosciences from Karen Helgers: First I explain how the geosciences are not very diverse, but that there is some diversity. I discuss why diversity is advantageous to a field of study. Then I direct them to EGU's #Black in Geoscience blog post, highlighting "exceptional researchers in geodynamics and adjacent disciplines who do amazing research as PhDs, postdocs, professors and professionals and who just happen to be black." I ask students to choose a field of study that they find interesting and to describe what a person in that field does. I also point them to supplemental resources where they can learn more about those fields of study.
• Power of the Story: Interpreting Oral Histories from Kaatje Kraft: This activity asks students to find a narrative that depicts a geologic event (preferably from non-dominant cultural oral histories) and interpret it applying the knowledge they have gained in class. This writing assignment asks students to use their geologic knowledge to synthesize the science content into translation for a non-scientific audience.

Other teaching activities with a DEI focus

There are many teaching activities on the SERC website that incorporate elements of diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, access, or belonging in the geosciences. Here are a few that we know about:

• Society's dependence on mineral resources, from the InTeGrate project
• Uranium mining on the Navajo nation, based on information from this collection: Impacts of resource development on Native American lands
• Environmental justice and freshwater resources, from the InTeGrate project
• Surface process hazards: Living with landslides, from the GETSI project

Do you have a teaching activity that incorporates diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, access, or belonging in the geosciences? If so, please tell us about it in the comments!