In sedimentology courses, I emphasized the flow regime; how bedforms and their internal structure develop and transform at the sediment-water interface. It is essential for geology students to understand the flow regime concept and apply it to interpretating paleo-hydraulic conditions and parent bedforms responsible for stratification in sedimentary rocks. Water flowing at threshold velocities across a bed of fine sand (0.1-0.2 mm) initiates grain motion. As flow velocity increases, bedforms evolve from straight-crested to lunate, linguoid, and rhomboid ripples in the lower flow regime to plane beds and antidunes in the upper flow regime. I created a field exercise at Scripps Coastal Reserve (SCR), La Jolla, California for geology students to witness how flowing water interacts with sand to generate a spectrum of bedforms, from straight-crested ripples to antidunes, the deposits of which are preserved as distinguishable laminations and beds in sedimentary rocks. At SCR, seawater, recycled from research aquaria at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, cascades onto upper foreshore sand and flows seaward while scouring a channel ~12 cm deep near the channel head then splaying into braided rills < 1.0 cm deep near the swash zone. Teams of four students, spaced at varying intervals along the channel, insert garden stakes flagged with colored vinyl tape on opposite banks. A meter tape, extended across the channel between stakes, defines a transect, along which students measure water depth, identify bedforms, and describe sand grains at 10 cm intervals. Average velocity of stream flow is calculated from the time taken for a colored cork to travel a given channel distance. Cross-channel profiles drafted to scale by each team summarize the sedimentologic character for the section of channel studied. With this field exercise, students are engaged and derive satisfaction in constructing an original, meaningful visual product from data they collected.

Teaching and learning statistics is challenging for many students and instructors. Interpreting and discussing patterns in datasets requires using terminology and statistical concepts that students often struggle to grasp. Engaging in instruction of these concepts may detract from other goals, especially when some students are familiar with the concepts and others are not. Our goal was to develop a set of flexible vignettes that instructors could integrate or assign as related material to complement course activities that focused on data analyses and interpretation. These Statistical Vignettes describe basic statistical concepts using datasets and story-lines that students can relate to. The suite of Statistical Vignettes currently covers concepts such as significant figures, correlation and regression, normal distribution, mean-median-mode, and hypothesis testing. Each Statistical Vignette consists of a slide deck, with appealing cartoon illustrations, that includes instructor notes and is designed to take 15-20 minutes of time. The characters involved in each vignette are based on real scientists coming from diverse backgrounds, contributing to DEI goals. Statistical Vignettes can be used as a stand-alone activity or integrated into other course material that use the same concepts. For example, a data-based activity exploring climate change may incorporate the Statistical Vignettes on linear regression. We assessed the effectiveness of the SV's by conducting a quasi-experiment through the use of knowledge tests before and after exposure to the correlation coefficients and linear regression statistical vignettes. The students answered questions regarding definitions, graph interpretations and made calculations. Using their answers, we identified some learning gains in student understanding of correlation coefficient and linear regression. These Statistical Vignettes are available open access as teaching materials on the Project EDDIE website (projecteddie.org).

Our goal for this contribution is to share what we learned about "costs" and "benefits" during a 3-year initiative to embed and improve open source resources and strategies for quantitative learning in the Earth, ocean, atmospheric, climate and environmental sciences. Outcomes of this project, carried out mainly within the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS) at the University of British Columbia, include: 1) converting 6 courses from using MatLab to Python, 2) developing interactive dashboard apps for exploring data or quantitative concepts, 3) piloting several approaches to providing cloud computing for undergraduates, 4) documenting pedagogic practices, guidelines and tutorials to support continued enhancement of quantitative learning across all Earth science disciplines, and 5) delivering results as Open Education Resources. Overall, 19 colleagues participated, 13 students contributed time, talent and enthusiasm, and over 2000 students were impacted in more than 15 courses spanning our curriculum. We learned much about what it takes to make and sustain improvements to quantitative geoscience education. For example, sustaining project momentum required continued commitment of at least three Faculty with technical, administrative or teaching/learning expertise. Shifting to Python as a consistent computing context across our curriculum ranged from straightforward in some courses to highly labour intensive and complex in others. Developing interactive dashboards required minimal effort by Faculty but incorporating them into students' learning and evaluating results required imagination, commitment, iteration and teaching/learning support. Student workers and teaching assistants made key contributions by writing code, adapting open source texts, helping instructors familiarize with open source practices, testing new resources, and supporting the implementation of new content, pedagogies and logistics. By discussing our challenges, solutions and decisions, we hope to inform and encourage those considering similar projects so that their initiatives might be carried out more efficiently and effectively.

Spatial thinking skills are essential to student success in disciplines such as geology, atmospheric science, and geography. In particular, previous work on spatial thinking in the atmospheric sciences has demonstrated that skills such as mental animation, disembedding, and perspective taking have been shown to be important for interpreting, understanding, and predicting the four-dimensional atmosphere. However, when students develop and build on such skills as they progress through the meteorology curriculum is unknown. In this study, the Spatial Thinking Abilities Test (STAT) is used to quantify the extent of spatial thinking abilities in undergraduate students enrolled in courses required for the meteorology major at a large public university in the southeastern United States. Using a subset of 12 multiple choice questions, STAT is administered twice a semester in each course as a pre-test and post-test. Starting in Spring 2022 continuing through Spring 2023, data was collected from students across 10 courses. This presentation will discuss semester-level gains in spatial thinking and provide comparisons in spatial thinking abilities based on various demographic subgroups, including gender, major, and level of expertise in meteorology. Performance on questions testing specific spatial thinking skills will also be described. Finally, to characterize the progression in spatial thinking abilities, students who completed the STAT over multiple semesters will be identified and followed through each administration of the test. The long-term goal of this study is identify where improvements can be made in the undergraduate meteorology curriculum to enhance the success of all students.

The ADVANCEGeo Partnership is an NSF ADVANCE funded program to improve workplace climate conditions by developing bystander intervention education for a variety of audiences to appropriately respond to and prevent harassment, bullying and other exclusionary behaviors in research environments. A product of this work is the development of teaching modules defining exclusionary behaviors as research misconduct–and presenting strategies to address them–for use in research ethics training courses. These teaching modules are geared towards faculty members at US institutions who teach courses on or about research ethics that align with 1) the NSF training requirement to provide appropriate Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR) to all students who will be supported by NSF to conduct research; and 2) the NIH Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) requirement for continuing informal or formal training in research ethics throughout the year. The teaching modules are designed in a virtual hybrid format to provide greatest accessibility and reduce costs for instructors. Students are expected to complete pre-work through a series of activities and lessons in an online module hosted by the SERC website; this is followed by a 90-minute online lesson led by an ADVANCEGeo trained facilitator. Optional assessments will be made available for course instructors to use in their class. This presentation outlines core elements of the teaching module and the provided optional assessments.

In teaching general education Earth Science lecture, I want to make connections between separate topics. One way I have done so is to create a paleoseismology activity that requires students to apply principles of relative geologic time to the record of prehistoric earthquakes. This activity is derived from Kerry Sieh's investigation of the San Andreas earthquake record at Pallet Creek, northeast of Los Angeles, using the simplified cross-section published by Susan Hough in her book Earthshaking Science (2002). Hough's figure shows a set of vertical ruptures caused by earthquakes in the Pallet Creek valley and horizontal peat beds. Students are first asked to decide what tools or principles would help work out the sequence of events. Some students want to immediately interpret the answer, but I tell them if you don't have a method first, then you can't get a reasonable answer. As a group, they gradually coalesce around the idea that superposition shows the fill of sedimentary layers in the valley and cross-cutting relationships shows how much fill had occurred when each rupture happened. They then can work out the sequence of the ruptures. The peat beds have radiocarbon dates; these can be placed into the rupture sequence by superposition and the students can evaluate earthquake numerical age and whether the earthquakes are evenly spaced or bunched.I had not decided whether this activity could be used in the lecture or lab (most UNCP students do not take the lab). I discovered it could be done in a 50-minute lecture period, so I decided to do it in lecture. Finally, because Pembroke is in the earthquake hazard zone related to the Charleston 1886 earthquake, I describe the analogous but different approach (buried sand boils) for estimating recurrence interval for Charleston earthquakes.

The adoption of OER has been shown to reduce student textbook costs. Yet most geoscience courses taught at California community colleges lack OER, creating unnecessary barriers for students. Geoscience educators identified C-ID GEOL 200 Geology of California as one of those courses. Many Geology of California courses have historically used instructor-created materials and/or one of two traditional textbooks: California's Amazing Geology by Donald R. Prothero or California Geology by Deborah Harden, both of which can be purchased for ~ and would not be considered either Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) or Low Textbook Cost (LTC).With support from the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI) our team of geoscience educators from across California will produce a freely available, online, interactive, culturally responsive OER to support Geology of California. The OER will include interactive H5P formative assessments throughout (e.g. flashcards, drag-and-drop, hotspot etc). Students will be able to further interact with the content via embedded 3D models (e.g. Sketchfab models of rocks and minerals) and Virtual Field Experiences (e.g. 360º photosphere tours that can be viewed either on a laptop, tablet, or phone or in virtual reality). This OER will be developed with IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) principles and culturally responsive pedagogy at its forefront. The final product will be hosted on LibreTexts, a platform with robust remixing capabilities, and will be ready for adoption and adaptation in late spring 2024. The potential impact of this OER is significant: Approximately 71% of California Community Colleges offer degrees in Geology. Potentially all of these institutions could offer Geology of California. Furthermore, Geology of California is taught at CSUs and UCs statewide. Our vision for this OER is that it will be adopted at both 2- and 4-year institutions.

Addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development goals requires educating a citizenry who can undertake the wicked problems of sustainability from multiple disciplinary perspectives. It requires curricular approaches that provide opportunities to integrate different perspectives, gain understanding of how different disciplines approach problems in different and sometimes conflicting ways, and involve connecting personal experience to a problem. The NSF-funded Business and Science: Integrated Curriculum for Sustainability (BASICS) project developed and piloted such a transdisciplinary curriculum with natural science, business, and social science faculty at Bentley University, Northern Illinois University, and Wittenberg University. Two "common exercise" modules incorporate systems and transdisciplinary thinking with course-specific teaching activities to provide disciplinary context. The curriculum is available for use on the BASICS website (https://serc.carleton.edu/basics/). Cohorts of faculty at the three institutions developed the curriculum modules in two-year development cycles. "Local learning communities" (LLCs) were employed within and across institutions to support the implementation of the materials, including a cohort of faculty who were not directly involved in their development. One module asks students to address the challenge of downstream pollution in the Mississippi River watershed and the second facilitates student's examination of a product's lifecycle and its implications for a linear versus a circular economy. Assessment data suggest that students gain an understanding of the importance of seeking expertise from different disciplines and the value of integrating those perspectives to address complex problems. Faculty report gaining confidence in practices for facilitating transdisciplinary learning. This poster will present information about the two modules, examples of the disciplinary teaching activities, the curriculum development approach used, and preliminary student assessment findings.

Project EDDIE (Environmental Data-Driven Inquiry and Exploration) aims to strengthen undergraduate students' quantitative reasoning and inquiry through utilizing large, authentic, publicly-available datasets in a scaffolded A-B-C structure, wherein students move from a prescriptive inquiry to guided inquiry to open inquiry all within one module. Modules range in length from one class period to one week and include all materials needed to complete the activities within the module. They span disciplines such as geology, hydrology, limnology, and environmental sciences.A set of more than 25 faculty-authored modules have been developed using the projects tested materials design and have undergone a review process and classroom testing. All curricular materials are constructed to be flexible in how they are used and are anchored with an overarching relevant scientific question situated in an authentic context. Designed to help students explore and embrace the unexpected, modules promote discussion and create a classroom in which students are actively engaging in scientific practices and are driven by curiosity and exploration; activities are the on-ramp in engaging students to go further in their increasingly independent exploration and inquiry. To support wider use, modules have an accompanying "My EDDIE Experience" web page that documents how the module was implemented in the classroom, providing users with ideas for how modules can be adapted to fit their needs. In addition, a series of recorded and publicly available Meet the Author and webinar events showcase how modules have been used in the classroom. Supplemental materials developed through the project, which can be used in conjunction with the modules, include a video collection with software, statistical, and pedagogical tutorials as well as a collection of statistical vignettes that teach statistical concepts through engaging storylines.Check out the modules on the Project EDDIE website and learn more about the EDDIE Way.

Interested to teach with geophysics instrumentation but need better access to equipment and supporting resources?A variety of geophysics field instruments available for loan for undergraduate teaching purposes through the NSF-funded GETSI (GEodesy Tools for Societal Issues) and IGUaNA (Introducing Geophysics for Urban and Near-Surface Applications) projects. These instruments include: real-time kinematic GPS, structure from motion supplies, ground penetrating radar, and multichannel shallow seismic systems. Community partners can also loan gravimeters and electrical resistivity meters. To support teaching with these resources, six field-related undergraduate-level teaching modules have been developed by. The modules all feature the application of geophysical data and techniques to societally-relevant, real-world problems – aimed to attract a diverse range of students into the geosciences. The resources include manuals for using instruments and prepared data sets for courses that cannot do the data collection themselves. These NSF-funded modules are available online for free and the equipment loans only include the cost of shipping (waivers are available).

We know active-learning and group work can be effective learning strategies. Moving students from knowledge acquisition to understanding, application, analysis, and synthesis (Blooms Taxonomy of Learning) is an important teaching goal. Having a unique final product that one has created also can help students to secure learning and gain a sense of accomplishment. In my Introduction to Oceanography Course this semester, I experimented with combining all of these strategies & goals into one, asking students over two weeks to work only in-class, in groups of 3, in a structured way, to write a final paper on a coastline of their choice. This was done over four 90-minute class periods, in a class of 72 undergraduate (mostly non-STEM) students . Each class, the students turned in paper-based, structured assignments, in which they were guided to apply what they had learned throughout the last 1/4 of the class, analyze new information based on their previous knowledge, and assess their work. They also were told to add elements of each class activity to a shared online document. During the fourth class, using the shared document and a set of instructions, the groups put together a final product that synthesized what they had learned. The final project was an 7-9 paragraph paper that consisted of an overview, and sections entitled Renewable Energy, Tectonic Setting, Beaches, Sea Level Rise and a Shoreline in Flux. Every group was able to complete the paper within the allotted time, despite being very skeptical at the start of class. I will share how this course, and specifically this exercise, have evolved in the ~18 years I have taught Oceanography; what the students, Teaching Assistants and I learned during this iteration; and lastly, how this exercise can be done in other classes.

Recently, the abundance of microplastics represent a major environmental concern. Microplastics are ubiquitous because of the gradual dumping of plastic wastes, inadequate standard detection methods, and their slow disposal rates. This research aimed at developing an innovative approach to remove microplastics from water via magnetite nanoparticles. Magnetite nanoparticles were synthesized using an aqueous solution of ferric and ferrous chloride as the precursors and ammonium hydroxide solution as the precipitation agent through a co-precipitation method. To confirm the presence of the magnetic nanoparticles, synthesized magnetite nanoparticles were characterized using two different techniques: Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The response of magnetite nanoparticles to external magnet was investigated. With this removal approach, polystyrene microparticles were recovered. Overall, the procedure is efficient for various types of microplastics and can be used as a step of an extraction procedure for microplastics in water.

Groundwater makes up 99 % of all liquid freshwater and is essential for sustaining biodiversity, food production, and climate adaptation. Although the future of humanity is closely tied to groundwater, there is a fundamental deficiency in the capacity to recognize, assess and solve groundwater problems. Groundwater science is a distinct discipline, requiring specialized knowledge and solutions that are at the core of freshwater. Decision makers and the public have been given insufficient exposure to this knowledge, which is needed to make informed decisions about the water resources. Furthermore, enhanced public knowledge will empower citizens and water stakeholders to take informed, local action on water issues. There are many factors that contribute to this situation of lack of groundwater knowledge and awareness, but the most important one is the widespread lack of opportunities to learn about groundwater, its problems, and solutions and how groundwater relates to food, energy, biodiversity, climateresilience and poverty. The Groundwater Project (www.gw-project.org), is a Canadian non-profit charitable organization incorporated in 2019, committed to advancement in education by creating and making available online free high-quality groundwater educational material for all (books, video's). The Groundwater Project, which promotes groundwater learning, is driven by the philanthropic work of more than a thousand volunteers, with exceptional groundwater expertise from scientists and practitioners from more than 30 countries. The published books are aimed at education for readership at all levels and all global circumstances to serve humanity and our Planet's ecology. In this poster we will share our story, accomplishments, and vision, and how we are endeavoring to make a difference to groundwater education and awareness of groundwater in environmental management, food production and the citizenry at large. We will outline future opportunities for geoscience educators to become involved.

Citizen science is a way for the public to actively contribute to scientific research. NASA supports multiple citizen science efforts (https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscience) that provide individuals with varying levels of scientific knowledge and training (zero experience to highly experienced) the opportunity to directly contribute to ongoing research projects, while also providing researchers with volunteers to broaden their data collection or image analyses. Traditionally, volunteers to these efforts are members of the public who have a passion or strong interest in science. However, these efforts also can be ideally suited for students who may just be learning what science is and/or how scientific endeavors are undertaken; these efforts also have the potential to decrease barriers for involvement in conducting science and to reduce science anxiety that students may experience. Consequently, we encourage the integration of established citizen science projects into science course curricula. NASA's citizen science efforts cover a variety of subject areas that touch on the Earth, Mars, Moon, Sun, and beyond providing a wealth of content options for instructors regardless of the class focus, student background, and mode of instruction (in person, online, hybrid). Project websites provide the necessary background information on the scientific questions addressed as well as tutorials on how to undertake a project. Visiting project websites also allows instructors to choose projects most relevant to their specific class (i.e., science topic and grade level). In our poster presentation we will outline some active NASA citizen science projects and describe examples of how they may be integrated into various course types and levels. We also will describe potential ways student learning could be assessed in these projects; assessment could include pre- and post-tests, reflection papers, exam questions, and class presentations. Much flexibility ultimately exists on how to integrate NASA citizen science efforts into courses and create authentic science experiences.

Recent surveys have shown that a significant percentage of young adults in the U.S. are disengaged or disagree with the fact that human activity is the cause of the issue of global warming. Yet, the National Academy of Sciences has published studies showing strong scientific evidences for global warming due to increasing human energy consumption of fossil fuels. Accordingly, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published learning objectives for educating the world population on global warming and renewable energy by 2030. In this paper, we introduce how physics educators can employ reflective writing to foster deeper student understanding of global warming in introductory college physics and physical science courses, without overloading teaching time.

Our Oxnard College students are involved in learning about Oceanography, Geology, and Earth Science in the Ventura County area. Learning is combined with Canvas course software supporting textbook instruction, and multiple field trips as part of the course curriculum either by Zoom, or face to face instruction. We use field work that is often too rare for any student these days, as we take the students from the classroom environment and out into the field. Many of the students are from the Oxnard-Hueneme area, and come from a very diverse-ethnic, social economic backgrounds. We find that using tangible information for course materials by using multiple techniques and instruments is a great way to instruct. We use power points and poster presentations, multimedia videos, globes, sand sieve equipment, tape measures, portable sand size charts, GPS units, cameras, microscopes, navigation charts, topographic and geologic maps, Brunton and baseplate compasses, beach balls to assess longshore current, periodic table of elements, samples (rocks, minerals, and fossils), including a wide variety of laboratories for Oceanography, Geology, and Earth Science courses. Over the years, our students are have been undertaking three major projects as they learn about Extinct Volcanic Centers in the Santa Monica Mountains; Hydrocarbon Seeps in the Santa Maria and Santa Barbara Basins; and Ventura County rivers and beach sand migration at local shorelines, the longshore current, and anthropogenic influences. Presently, our students are learning that Ventura County is situated along a very dynamic stretch of coastline. Critical infrastructure and valuable ecological resources are vulnerable to present and future coastal erosion. The main driver of these vulnerabilities is a reduction in sand supply along the local shorelines. Students learn that quartz sand is migrating down the Ventura and Santa Clara Rivers, and Calleguas Creek, as the "life blood" of this coastal system supplying beaches.

Students will undoubtedly have to participate in making decisions about complex scientific issues for their entire lives. Education reform documents such as Vision and Change in the Geosciences: The Future of Undergraduate Geoscience Education and Addressing the Climate Crisis: An Action Plan for Psychologists, Report on the APA Task Force on Climate Change suggest the need for teaching about complex scientific issues such as climate change and supporting decision making skills. However,issues such as climate change are complex in that they require a multidimensional, interdisciplinary approach to teaching. Content is clearly not enough and we must also support students in their decision making skills about climate adaptation and resilience strategies. Given the importance of decision making skills, we must understand how, when, and under what conditions does the Structured Decision Making framework support the development of these skills. This can be accomplished with a Fidelity of Implementation framework because this can allow us to measure the implementation of this strategy fidelity and allow us to understand how and why this intervention works. In this poster, a Fidelity of Implementation framework is applied to the Structured Decision Making model to demonstrate when, how, and under what conditions are students decision making skills best supported within this framework. Implications for research and strength of evidence will be discussed.

The Hueneme Submarine Canyon's configuration is structurally controlled by the Hueneme Fault Zone that was mapped from UNOCAL's seismic line collection in the 1980's. The Canyon depths were also mapped by the U.S. Department of Commerce in two Nautical Charts (2013) showing bathemetric contours interpreted as a steep canyon straight-line structure within the shipping channel that strikes N19°E, and meanders further offshore, measured at 2.9 km (1.8 mi) wide, and 14.8 km (9.2 mi) long. The Canyon's flank walls contain varying slopes up to 50°. The Canyon contains shallow to deep subsea depths that were sounded from 6 fathoms (36 feet) ranging up to 317 fathoms (1,902 feet). At the farthest extent of the end of the steep feature, the bathemetric contours flare out at about 324 to 439 fathoms (1,944 to 2,634 feet), and are interpreted as the northern edge of the Hueneme Submarine Fan. The Fan's deepest subsea depths are sounded up to 513 fathoms (3,078 feet).The Canyon is incised into the southwest edge of the Oxnard Plain, a subsiding series of alluvium interbedded with sandy beach and clayey lagoonal deposits (U.S.G.S, 1949; and Crowell, 1952). The headwall of Canyon is located just outside the Port Hueneme Harbor entrance, and with a buried Canyon rim that is moderately resistant to wave-caused scour, when accompanied by moving sand. The Hueneme Submarine Canyon is connected to the Hueneme Fan that has rough northwest trending, rectangular configuration with dimensions of 30 x 70 km (18.5 x 43.5 mi), and formed by turbidity currents, mapped by the U.S.G.S. (2009). The Hueneme Canyon structure is important because this funnel-like conduit, coupled with the longshore current, transports migrating sands and gravels downcoast that are deflected by the northern jetty into the Hueneme Canyon-Fan system, flaring out into the San Pedro Channel.

Field experiences have been shown to increase students' learning and retention of subject-specific skills (e.g., geology) as well as more "universal" or "transferable" skills (e.g., Paor & Whitmeyer; Alon & Tal, 2015; Hannula, 2019). However, students don't often realize that these universal skills are (A) being developed and (B) valued by potential employers just as much as - if not more than - subject specific skills. Using the UFERN (Undergraduate Field Experiences Research Network) model and a focus on student context factors, we have begun to make incremental changes to the summer field course at California State University Long Beach (CSULB), to increase emphasis on "universal" skills and guide students to become self-advocates for their learning and skill development. Course additions include: (i) dedicated time to think and reflect on skill development, (ii) "fire-side chats" to discuss topics like graduate school, industry jobs, preparation of application materials, etc., (iii) oral presentations in the field, and (iv) a final project requiring students to write an expanded cover letter. Through pre- and post-survey tools, we assess students' confidence in their geologic skills, scientific skills, and universal skills (Weston and Laursen, 2015). The post-survey also includes questions about which activities students felt helped with their development of these different skill sets. The final written assignment shows students' comfort with being self-advocates. Preliminary results from fourteen participants across two cohorts show that students are least confident in their ability to perform scientific skills, and that their self-reported confidence in their general science skills and their universal skills increase during the time they are in the field course. Eleven students shared graduate school or workplace application materials but did not write about these skills in their applications, even for skill areas which they self-reported feeling confident.

Course-based research experiences (CBREs) and applying scientific skills to "real" problems have been shown to increase students' interest and retention in STEM fields (e.g., Papendieck et al., 2018; 2020). Therefore, STEM educators have been shifting towards incorporating more courses or modules that involve aspects of doing research or employing the scientific method. However, there has been little involvement of the students themselves, in the development of these experiential learning environments. We have designed and modified a general education (GE) physical science lab course (Geology of local, state, and national parks), using student context factors, to increase student interest in STEM with the goal of either (1) recruiting more students into Earth Science, or (2) increasing/changing students' literacy of and perceptions towards Earth Science. Our course design is guided by student responses to surveys assessing their feelings about different course components and pedagogical approach, including: logistics, class time, activities, assessments, topics, and the course description. Course components include: (i) field trips to local parks, (ii) data collection in the field, (iii) discussions about human impacts, (iv) lab work to analyze and visualize collected data, and (v) creation of different science communication products. We surveyed mostly freshmen and sophomore students at California State University Long Beach, using a survey tool composed of multiple choice and rank style questions. Final results from this survey are forthcoming and will guide further modifications to the course design and provide a basis for creating an additional survey tool to expand our assessment of course components and their effect on student interest, recruitment, and retention in STEM and Earth Science in particular.

Post-secondary education ideally teaches students both content knowledge (e.g., what feldspar is) and procedural knowledge (e.g., how to identify feldspar). While the former is traditionally assessed through exams, projects, etc., the latter is harder to measure. One such generally under-assessed but valuable type of procedural knowledge is the ability to solve authentic real-world problems. Interdisciplinary STEM education research has identified a series of common decisions made by skilled practitioners (or "experts"). We have applied this decision-making framework to earth science by creating an assessment themed around natural hazards, in which participants decide which section of road to prioritize for reinforcement in Seattle, WA. This assessment was pilot tested through iterations of think-aloud interviews and revisions. We collected data about how well the assessment performed by having 14 experts and a total of 143 students (or "novices") in three introductory- and intermediate-level university earth science courses take the assessment through an online survey. Quantitative and qualitatively coded results indicated differences between expert and novice decision-making practices. Future iterations of this assessment will convert free-response sections into more easily graded multiple-choice versions, allowing instructors to more efficiently assess student decision-making skill development.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize the importance of climate education and the epistemology of science among high school students. Teachers play an important role in supporting students' climate literacy. However, they have limited access to instructional resources that provide standards-based curriculum on Global Climate Change and Earth's climate. Also, identifying and developing these resources involve the use of limited resources (i.e. time). In response, in 2022, we implemented a one-week Professional Development Program (PDP) for teachers at a national level to learn about two standards-based climate change-related curricula for high school students which focus on i) the use of a global climate model for students, [the tool] and ii) carbon capture and sequestration strategies. Overall, N = 55 teachers from various states participated in the PDP, which provided opportunities for cross-fertilization between climate scientists and science educators. The study aims to understand teachers' interest in adopting these resources in their own classrooms. The research questions are i) what criteria do teachers employ to evaluate the adoption decisions of climate-related curricula? and ii) what group factors may influence teachers' assessment of these resources? We used mixed methods to analyze results from a pre-post survey, four online discussions, and participants' Unit Plan Tasks. Overall, the results of the study showed that curricula's affordances included i) versatility and opportunities for inquiry-based learning, ii) supports for the understanding of vocabulary, concepts and processes, and iii) epistemic outcomes related to research and modelling practices. Teachers with an alternative or provisional certification had lower ratings of feasibility of the curricula compared to teachers with a regular teaching certification. Teachers who were ages 40-49 had higher ratings on the system support scale compared to teachers who were 20-29 years old. These results can support the implementation of other programs to support teachers' practice.

Conducting education research involving students requires thoughtful prior planning and meticulous attention to detail. From the conception of the research question, to IRB approval, to data cleaning and analysis, the process of collecting and analyzing student data is complex and cumbersome. For those new to education research, many of the challenges can be difficult to plan for at the outset of a project. Longitudinal data in particular provides valuable insights into student progress, but it requires additional considerations to ensure data quality. Here, we discuss lessons learned on survey planning and piloting, pairing pre- and post-survey data, managing participant attrition, and more. In addition to a review of the literature for best practices, we leverage our shared experience conducting case studies with hundreds of student participants to provide practical recommendations for a framework for planning longitudinal data collection. This will include questions and plans for data collection to streamline your data analysis.