132 Diversifying Geoscience Education Across the Academic Playing Field: Using Creative Methods to Foster the Current and Next Generations of Geoscience Professionals, Part II

A wide range of geoscience educators across several disciplines will share a multitude of diverse and innovative ideas regarding lesson plans, projects, and pedagogical techniques best suited for today’s ever-changing classrooms.

Monday, 20 October 2025
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
HBGCC, 301A

Case Study: Use of Test Question Templates to Allow Open Science During Open Exams in an Introductory Earth Science Course at Antelope Valley College

Paper number: 132-2
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 1:50 PM – 2:05 PM

Authors

Abstract

The Introduction to Earth Sciences course (ERSC 101) at Antelope Valley College (AVC, a California Community College in Lancaster, CA) is one of two physical science courses required for pre-service K-6 teachers.  ERSC 101 covers geology, oceanography, meteorology, and astronomy and is typically the only college-level coverage of these subjects received by students before they become K-6 teachers. 

One of the goals of the course is that students learn to bring not just geoscience concepts, but actual geoscience data, into their own lives and into the lives of their future students. 

During Spring 2025, the ERSC 101 courses at AVC taught by Aurora Burd were part of an NSF study (ITYC #2412708) focusing on exam preview methods. In this case, the exam preview method used was “test question templates (TQTs),” which show students what kinds of questions might be on the exam.  

TQTs focus on giving students the ability to see how exam questions will be written, but without sharing the exact question that will be on the exam, and are thought to have significant benefits for students. 

An added benefit in the case of the geosciences is that students have the opportunity to understand the format and/or goal of an exam question ahead of time, so that more complicated or involved questions can be used on an exam. 

In ERSC 101, the test question templates were used to familiarize students with real (but out-of-date or non-local) open science data and to then interpret current, local data as part of their exams.  

For instance, students were instructed to use the AirNow.gov website to determine their current local air quality and answer questions about that quality (and/or which pollutants are affecting the quality), and to look at a plot of time series data showing daily local air quality going back decades to consider how local air quality changes seasonally or over time. 

We will present examples of how TQTs were used to prepare geoscience open exams using open science. 

We hope that this method helps students see more relevance to science, gives them a road map to engage with it in their own lives, and learn ways to also bring real, current, local data into the lives of their future young students. 

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-413554

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