T19 Stepping out of the Box to Put Rocks in the Heads of Non- Majors: Do Creative Teaching Techniques Enhance Learning in Post-Secondary Introductory Geology Courses?

Sunday, 27 October 2013
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Room 405

GEOSCIENCE LEARNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE:  INTEGRATE HURRICANE HAZARDS MODULE

Paper number: T19-9
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 10:00 AM – 10:15 AM

Authors

Abstract

Making the difficult decision to evacuate before a hurricane makes landfall can save lives and property, but unnecessary evacuations can be expensive and cause evacuation fatigue. As part of a national NSF-funded effort to increase interdisciplinary learning for a sustainable future (InTeGrate), we have created a two-week module to help introduce students to the scientific and societal challenges associated with hurricanes. This module explores how hurricanes connect the ocean-atmosphere-terrestrial systems and society. Students evaluate how hurricane hazards and risks have changed with coastal development. In particular, recent data from Hurricanes Sandy, Irene, Katrina, and others are used in the module. Students use data and deal with issues of uncertainty to track historic hurricanes and compare the impacts from different hurricanes. The module culminates in a role-playing activity in which students identify and represent stakeholders facing hypothetical evacuation in their town. While addressing key science literacy principles, the module includes a variety of teaching strategies and is adaptable to a variety of class sizes, course levels, and learning environments.

Developed and tested at three different undergraduate institutions (public research university, private research university, and private liberal arts college), this module is one of many being developed as part of the InTeGrate project. The InTeGrate project (http://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/index.html) has designed a new model for the development, testing, and dissemination of free, customizable, modular geoscience educational resources that have undergone rigorous testing and can be readily incorporated into a variety of introductory geoscience courses. Over two years, teams develop modules that explicitly address geoscience-related societal challenges, build interdisciplinary problem-solving skills, make use of real geoscience data, and incorporate geoscientific and systems thinking. Modules are reviewed against the InTeGrate design rubric, and piloted and assessed by the module authors in their classrooms.