GETSI Teaching Materials >Planning for Failure: Landslide Analysis > Instructor Stories > Scott White
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This module is part of a growing collection of classroom-tested materials developed by GETSI. The materials engage students in understanding the earth system as it intertwines with key societal issues. The collection is freely available and ready to be adapted by undergraduate educators across a range of courses including: general education or majors courses in Earth-focused disciplines such as geoscience or environmental science, social science, engineering, and other sciences, as well as courses for interdisciplinary programs.
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Initial Publication Date: December 5, 2019

Scott White: Using Planning for Failure: Landslide Analysis in GEOL 315: Surface and Near-Surface Processes at University of South Carolina-Columbia


About this Course

upper division major course for Geological Sciences and for Environmental Sciences

30
students
Three 50-minute lectures and a 3-hour lab per week

Syllabus for GEOL 315 Spring 2019 (Acrobat (PDF) 1000kB May28 19)

Surface and Near-surface Processes is a majors level course for both the Geological Sciences and the Environmental Sciences majors. Students have diverse paths to reach this course, and while most are comfortable with computation and quantitative decision-making, some students do struggle to develop those skills. This course is taught as a traditional lecture and lab, with some elements of active learning during the lecture portion. This was a first attempt at introducing a sequence of labs that built on previous labs directly and a first attempt at introducing GIS into the curriculum for Geological majors. This presented a major step forward in curriculum design, a new challenge for the students, and some interesting times during the lab portion. This module provided students with the ability to immerse themselves in a subject that is has obvious societal relevance; this helped them engage with the material and rise to the challenges of learning mass wasting concepts while developing new software skills. The module also demonstrated to students how geosciences influence policy and decision-making, the importance of integrating social science and geoscience, and a what goes into building a more resilient community.

This module provided students with the ability to immerse themselves in a subject that is has obvious societal relevance; this helped them engage with the material and rise to the challenges of learning

My Experience Teaching with GETSI Materials

In this course, we used all of the modules as written. We uploaded datasets to a computer server on the night before the lab and provided printouts of the lab instructions for students to follow. One slight change that was implemented was a focus on using the Puerto Rico data. We only lightly used the Arizona datasets as needed to help develop a deeper understanding of the issues in Puerto Rico.

Relationship of GETSI Materials to my Course

The course, GEOL 315, has 12 lab periods. We start with surface processes, move from basic topographic analysis to surface hydrology to groundwater. As the semester goes on students work with increasingly quantitative datasets. This module was implemented in the third week of the course as one of their first exercises after introduction to topography and elevation surveying. These labs comprised the capstone of the first half of the course on geomorphology.

Assessments

The assessments followed the lab assignments very closely. I wanted to put some emphasis on how science help informs policy and resilient communities so I made the presentations worth the majority of the grade for the labs. I felt that this allowed some flexibility for the students to implement their own workflows and develop more of their own ideas in working with the data.

Outcomes

My original goal for introducing GIS was for students to develop quantitative decision-making skills. I found that the students attained proficiency of translating quantitative data into useful information as well as a deeper appreciation the intersection of science and policy. I found that the outcomes in integrating sciences and social science were surprisingly good.

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This module is part of a growing collection of classroom-tested materials developed by GETSI. The materials engage students in understanding the earth system as it intertwines with key societal issues. The collection is freely available and ready to be adapted by undergraduate educators across a range of courses including: general education or majors courses in Earth-focused disciplines such as geoscience or environmental science, social science, engineering, and other sciences, as well as courses for interdisciplinary programs.
Explore the Collection »