January 2008 Journal of Geoscience Education
Volume 56, Number 1
Victoria Crater, an impact crater located at 5.50°W 2.05°S in Meridiani Planum, on Mars, currently being visited by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. It is roughly 730 metres wide and 70 meters deep. It is named after Victoria, one of the five ships of Ferdinand Magellan and the first ship to circumnavigate the globe. Along the edges of the crater are many outcrops within recessed alcoves and promontories, named for bays and capes that Magellan discovered.
Effective Materials for Increasing Young Children's Spatial and Mapping Skills
Mandy R. Petty,
Oswego County BOCES Migrant Program
Audrey C. Rule,
University of Northern Iowa
Spatial skills are necessary for mapping success and
conceptual understanding in the geosciences. This study
investigates the efficacy of using toy figures, toy
buildings, digital plan-view photograph maps and
digital photograph snapshots in increasing the spatial
skills of children ages 2.5 to 9 years. A
pretest-intervention-posttest design study with matched
experimental and control groups (n=20) was conducted.
The investigators examined children's performance in
six skill areas: diminution in scale; identifying the simple
perspective of another; mental linear displacement;
mental rotation; using an aligned map and rotating an
unaligned map into alignment; and identifying a more
complex viewpoint of another. Pretest mean total scores
were not significantly different. Posttest scores showed a
twenty percent gain for the experimental group, but no
net gain for the control group. Activities as described in
this study can build a foundation of spatial skills needed
for later geoscience map activities.
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Investigating the Sedimentary History of a Pond During a Multi-Week Laboratory Project
John A. Diemer,
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Andy R. Bobyarchick,
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
A multi-week laboratory exercise in the Sedimentology
course at UNC Charlotte investigates the sedimentary
history of a 0.8 hectare (2 acre) pond on campus property.
The pond watershed experienced changes in land use
over 50 years that are documented using property
records, aerial photography and sedimentological
analysis. The laboratory exercise includes the tasks of
mapping the watershed, surveying, coring, describing
cores, preparing bathymetric profiles and stratigraphic
cross-sections, and composing a scientific report of the
sedimentary history of the pond. Students gain
experience with field techniques such as reading
topographic maps, land use mapping, triangulation and
sediment coring, and with laboratory techniques such as
core description, facies analysis, x-ray diffraction and
grain size analysis. The choice of techniques used in this
inquiry-based exercise was in part determined by the
research questions that the students devised. Rather than
learning those skills in discrete lab exercises, each
component contributes to a large-scale research program
the goal of which is to understand the sedimentary
history of the pond. Furthermore, the report is prepared
in stages (outline, rough draft and final draft) so that
students receive feedback on how to prepare an
illustrated scientific report. Writing the report in stages
improved the quality of student work, resulting in a
conference presentation. The students found that the
pond experienced slow, organic-rich sedimentation
when the watershed was vegetated, but that
sedimentation rates temporarily increased due to
construction of a nearby hospital.
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To Attract, Engage, Mentor and Sustain: Outcomes from the Minority Students Pursuing Higher Degrees of Success (MSPHD'S) in Earth System Science??? Pilot Project
Ashanti J. Pyrtle,
University of South Florida
Vivian A. Williamson Whitney,
Institute for Broadening Participation
The goal of Minority Students Pursuing Higher Degrees of
Success (MS PHD'S) in Earth System Science??? is to attract,
engage, mentor and sustain the involvement of
undergraduate and graduate minority students within
the Earth system science disciplines. The pilot project for
this new initiative, entitled the MSPHD'S in Ocean
Sciences Program, provided yearlong opportunities for
mentor/mentee engagement via academic, scientific and
professional development activities. The 2003-2004
MSPHD'S in Ocean Sciences Program facilitated the
involvement of 25 mentor-mentee partnerships during
the May 5-8, 2003, Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS)
Program Open Science Meeting in Washington, D.C. MS
PHD'S students received in-depth exposure to leading
edge ocean science research, mentoring support from
scientists responsible for these advancements, and
insight into future marine research initiatives.
Evaluation data for this pilot project indicate that virtual
and face-to-face mentoring, on-site professional
development and community-building activities
resulted in increased participant exposure to and
engagement in the Earth system science professional
community and served to better equip student
participants to make informed post-baccalaureate
academic and professional career decisions.
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Rise and Fall of Geology in Nineteenth Century American Secondary Schools: History and Textbook Reviews
James X. Corgan,
Austin Peay State University
Richard G. Stearns,
Vanderbilt University
Geology was widely taught in American secondary
schools during much of the nineteenth century. As
geology evolved so did textbooks. As schools and
teaching changed so did textbooks. This study examines
nineteenth century secondary school geology texts and a
crucial government report. It fits these nineteen
publications into a general cultural context, tracing the
gradual expansion and abrupt decline of geological
education in American's nineteenth century secondary
schools.
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Simulating Social and Political Influences on Hazard Analysis through a Classroom Role Playing Exercise
T.C. Hales,
Cardiff University
Katharine V. Cashman,
University of Oregon
Geological hazard mitigation is a complicated process
that involves both detailed scientific research and
negotiations among various community members who
have a personal stake in the chosen mitigation method. A
challenge for teachers is to incorporate both of these
elements into their classes. To address this problem, we
have spent six years in developing and testing a
role-playing exercise based on mitigation of a dam
outburst hazard on Ruapehu volcano, New Zealand. In
our exercise, students undertake one of five different
roles and decide, as a group, the best way to mitigate the
hazard. We divide our lesson into four parts: an
introduction, a meeting among members of the same
interested party to discuss strategy, a meeting among
different interested parties to find a consensus solution
to the hazard, and a debriefing session. Discussions
occur in the presence of a student facilitator and a
recorder. Our role-playing exercise is designed to be
completed in a single hour and fifty minute or two 50
minute class sessions. Students have responded
positively to the use of role-playing to supplement
lectures. The framework that we have used for our
exercise can be readily translated to other hazard
problems where different parties debate the best way to
mitigate other natural or industrial hazards.
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Earth Data, Science Writing, and Peer Review in a Large General Education Oceanography Class
William A. Prothero, Jr.,
University of California, Santa Barbara
Gregory J. Kelly,
Penn State University
Writing assignments were introduced to a large
introductory Oceanography class at UCSB. The
assignments evolved, over a period of 10 years, from
papers handed in to the instructor, to online peer
reviewed assignments using the calibrated peer review
methodology. The assignments required students to
acquire and plot data and use these data plots to create
scientific arguments in support of a theory. The topics
addressed plate tectonics, the Indian monsoon, the
Earth's climate, and the world fisheries. The course
activities were managed by the EarthEd software
package, which supports course management functions
such as online writing and peer review, image storage
and upload, auto-graded homework problems, and
course grade computation. Access to Earth data is
integrated within the EarthEd software through the "Our
Dynamic Planet" CDROM, Global Ocean Data Viewer,
and links to other data browsers available on the web.
Data representations are captured as images, uploaded
to the student's image library (in EarthEd) and then can
be edited and linked to the writing assignment text.
Convenient commenting, scoring, grade curving, and
posting is also implemented. The peer review
assignments were successful in providing accurate
grades for students, while reducing grading by the
instructor by about 70% to 80%.
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Fudge Factors in Lessons on Crystallization, Rheology and Morphology of Basalt Lava Flows
A.C. Rust,
University of Bristol
K.V. Cashman,
University of Oregon
H.M. Wright,
Monash University
Fudge is an excellent analog for basaltic lava and making
or tasting fudge leads to memorable lessons on the
importance of crystals in controlling the morphology of
basaltic lava flows. In particular, students learn why 'a'a
flows have rough broken surfaces, while pahoehoe flows
are smooth or folded. Furthermore, fudge provides an
interesting analog in lessons on the factors that control
crystal nucleation and growth as well as how crystals
affect magma rheology. Although the full process of
making fudge from scratch is too long for a lecture
demonstration, fudge can be incorporated into lessons
on basalt flows by way of taste-tests, photographs or
simplified experiments with pre-made fudge and syrup.
Advanced students can run experiments during a
laboratory period and examine the crystal textures under
a microscope, or do their own experiments in small
groups outside of the classroom. Evaluation with written
quizzes shows that fudge demonstrations can be an
effective aid for teaching the complex concepts of crystal
nucleation and growth and their effects on basalt lava
flows.
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Causality in Complex Dynamic Systems: A Challenge in Earth Systems Science Education
Federica Raia,
City College of New York
The understanding of the mechanisms underlying
processes such as self-organization, adaptation,
emergence, which are characteristics of complex
systems, is of paramount importance when teaching and
learning science. Preliminary research on student
understanding of complexity indicates that students
tend to conceptualize dynamic systems in static
disjointed terms, utilizing a linear-mono-causal
approach which impedes a conceptual understanding of
complex causal relations. Hypothesizing that student
understanding of the principles of causality plays a
fundamental role in the understanding of complexity,
undergraduate science majors have been interviewed to
explore their approaches to complex natural phenomena
and document changes that occur in reasoning when a
modified Aristotelian framework of causality principles
is introduced. Results indicate that the understanding of
emergence, downward causation, and self-organization
are better conceptualized when students utilize the
modified Aristotelian framework of causality principles.
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