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University of Wyoming

-Geology-

 

Three Geology courses are involved in the CLAAS project: Introduction to Physical Geology, Earth and Mineral Resources, and Energy: a Geological Perspective.

 

Introduction to Physical Geology (GEOL 1100)

Erin Campbell-Stone, Lecturer

Jimm Myers, Professor

Department of Geology and Geophysics

 

"In the past, if a student didn't know [these basic literacies], we expected them to do it for themselves - learn on their own.  Now we are thinking that if we want them to know something, we have to infuse it throughout the course repeatedly.  It is our responsibility to help them learn these skills."

Erin Campbell-Stone

Introduction to Physical Geology is a large enrollment course which focuses on teaching the fundamentals of geology.  Erin (lab coordinator) and Jimm (instructor) have embedded the following fundamental and technical literacies in their course, providing students with the background tools necessary to achieve mastery of the geologic content.

 

Fundamental Literacies

  • Interpreting tables, charts, and graphs

  • Making qualitative assessments

  • Performing simple quantitative calculations

Technical Literacies:

  •  Reading and using contour and geologic maps

  • Visualizing in three dimensions

  • Conceptualizing changes through time

Because these skills are most easily taught in lab, Erin rewrote the in-house lab manual to be both literacy- and content-based.  The literacies are listed in a matrix form at the beginning of each lab, showing students the specific literacies being addressed.  Early labs include simple exercises addressing literacies in the context of geological science, and subsequent labs repeat exposure to the literacies at increasing levels of difficulty.

Jimm and Erin’s CLAAS work for Introduction to Geology has focused primarily on the fundamental and technical literacies.  However, citizenship literacies are also addressed with a statement at the beginning of each lab on why the students should care about that day’s topic – regardless of their major.  For example, the lab on Sediment and Sedimentary Rocks begins:

Why should we care?  Sedimentary rocks store much of our drinking water, hold oil and natural gas, and provide coal.  If you look around the Laramie area, you will find several of the sedimentary rocks studied in this lab.

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Gender and Confidence in Introduction to Geology

 

To assess their integration of literacies in Introduction to Geology, Erin and Jimm administer pre- and post-course surveys which gather demographic data as well as information on students’ confidence and facility with each literacy.  The surveys have been integral in helping Jimm and Erin to identify the areas of greatest weakness and gauge how the backgrounds and levels of confidence of the students affect their performance.

Of particular interest has been the increase in confidence level shown by the female students throughout the course of the semester.  Following each gradable question on the literacy survey, students are asked to rate how confident they are in their answer.  Trends from the pre-course surveys are consistently showing lower confidence among women and higher confidence among men, regardless of whether they answered the problems correctly.  By the end of the semester, however, confidence levels on the literacy surveys are equal between the genders. 

The number of women professionals in scientific fields is gradually increasing, but the disparity between male and female confidence levels remains an important consideration for instructors of general education science courses.  In addition to teaching geologic content by way of literacies, Erin deliberately designed the lab manual to be non-intimidating.  She also trains her graduate assistants to be supportive and encouraging at all times.  While we cannot claim that the increased confidence among women in Introduction to Geology is due to any one of these efforts, Erin has observed that this collective approach has made a significant difference for her female students.

 

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Earth & Mineral Resources (GEOL 3600)

Energy: A Geological Perspective (GEOL 3650)

Jimm Myers, Professor, Department of Geology and Geophysics

Garth Massey, Course Assistant

 

"With this new lab, it didn’t matter what your major was.  Whether you were a business major, political science major, geology major, there was something you could get out of this.  It made every person in this class feel like they were involved because it made it all pertinent to what we did and what our majors were"

GEOL 3600 Student

At the beginning of the CLAAS project, Jimm was teaching Earth Resources (GEOL 3300), a general education course taught from a predominantly scientific and economic viewpoint.  He has since been collaborating with sociology professor Garth Massey to develop a set of citizenship literacies for the course. Their work has resulted in the creation of two separate courses – Earth and Mineral Resources (GEOL 3600) and Energy: A Geological Perspective (GEOL 3650) – which are now being offered in place of GEOL 3300.  These new courses emphasize the following citizenship literacies while continuing to review the fundamental and technical literacies listed for GEOL 1100:

 

 

Citizenship Literacies

Social context literacies:

  • Gaining a sense of history and understanding its significance

  • Appreciation of population demographics

  • Comprehension of economic context

  • Command of cultural and social structure

Critical thinking literacies:

  • Prediction of manifest and latent consequences

  • Recognition of potential short- and long-term impacts

  • Identification of externalities, hidden costs and shared costs

  • Ability to devise alternative strategies

The goals of these two courses are to prepare students as citizens to participate in discussions and decisions about natural resources or energy in an informed and constructive manner.

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Moving Beyond the Classroom: Global Case Studies

 

In developing Earth and Mineral Resources and Energy: A Geological Perspective, a significant amount of time was devoted to designing labs which promote informed global citizenship.  The new labs are based on realistic case studies of petroleum drilling in Nigeria, gold mining in South Africa, lead mining and smelting through the ages, nuclear energy in Japan and France, and coal mining in Wyoming.  Through these labs, students not only learn about other parts of the world but must confront difficult policy choices within unfamiliar cultural, social, religious, and economic contexts.  At the same time, their discussions are grounded by applicable scientific and geologic principles.

Each case study is distributed over the course of three lab periods, the first focusing on geology, the second on economics, and the third on social concerns.  The following is an example of the lab module on South Africa’s declining gold mining industry in the post-apartheid era:

  • Lab 1.  Students learn the geological material necessary to understand and make decisions about the geology of gold mining.

  • Lab 2.  Students decide on production strategies based on economic analysis.

  • Lab 3.  Students consider the history of gold mining and the externalization of costs through the decades - costs that now must be paid despite the declining profitability of gold mining.  They are given a likely scenario involving the adoption of new mine technology and take one of three positions in the situation: the mine company, the government, and the union of mine workers.

These labs require students’ active engagement in questions of Earth resource labor, commodities, and capital flow across national borders.  Area-specific issues such as volatile stock markets, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, human rights, and emerging democracies combine to make the case studies realistic confrontations for students across the disciplines.

 

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