The mineral identification lab is typically the entry level college student's initial hands-on introduction to minerals. Our research focused on identifying alternative mineralogy conceptions that students bring to an introductory geology course and investigating the origins and nature of these conceptions. We identified a number of alternative…

Spatial reasoning is one of the most challenging skills to master in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This article reports the results of a teaching intervention that involved using wooden blocks to enhance the development of spatial reasoning in an undergraduate-level introductory geology course. Wooden blocks…

Marble, formed by the metamorphism of limestone, is commonly used in the construction industry and sculpting. The mineral in marble is either calcite [CaCO[subscript 3]] or dolomite [CaMg(CO[subscript 3])[subscript 2]] or sometimes both. The pure white Carrara marble from Italy was made a household name by Michelangelo, the famous sculptor of the…

Triggered situational interest in introductory courses can encourage student engagement, motivation, and value for the geosciences. In-person labs have traditionally played a unique role in triggering situational interest compared to lectures, but the COVID transition online disrupted these dynamics. We examine students' self-reported situational…

Across the landscape of higher education, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused fundamental changes at a variety of scales. To understand which aspects of higher education instruction at the departmental (meso-scale) level were most and least impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, chairs of geoscience departments at public higher education institutions in…

Conventional letter- or number-based grading systems, though ubiquitous at all levels of education, do not optimize the learning experience. The philosophy of "ungrading" includes a variety of approaches that decenter or even remove numeric or letter scoring of student work in favor of descriptive feedback, opportunities for revision,…

Self-regulated learning (SRL) models provide a framework for understanding the observed variance of student performance in geoscience learning contexts. Instructors can potentially use a SRL framework to support students in self-identifying the specific approaches to learning they use when engaging in geoscience learning situations (coursework,…

Induced seismicity has received a lot of attention in recent years. This new natural phenomenon appeared as a result of active human influence on nature. The phenomenon has been detected in places of natural gas and oil recovery, and geological storage of CO[subscript 2]. One of the main reasons for the observed seismic activity is associated with…

The capstone course for many Earth Science programs is a field course. To increase accessibility and to create a substitute in light of the cancellation of in-person courses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed an online introductory field geology course. The course consisted of six different modules. The first was a virtual reality room,…

The aim of this study is to explore how tertiary science students' use of metaphors in their popular science article writing may influence their understanding of subject matter. For this purpose, six popular articles written by students in physics or geology were analysed by means of a close textual analysis and a metaphor analysis. In addition,…

Most of the research on student understanding of evolution by natural selection has focused on undergraduate biology courses for science majors. However, the majority of undergraduates in the United States will not enroll in a biology course for majors. In this study, we identify the extent of natural selection understanding that students acquire…

This article discusses how Google Earth represents an exciting opportunity to incorporate active learning in Earth science courses. Web-based Google Earth is easier to use than its initial incarnation that required users to download a large file in order to access the tool. Google Earth for Chrome can be used to engage students in activities that…

A virtual microscope resource was created when face-to-face labs were halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 to replicate the learning goals of an introductory petrology course on microscopy. This virtual microscope resource utilized images and videos of thin sections, as well as 3D rock models to allow students to complete labs online.…

Virtual field experiences (VFEs) are augments to traditional fieldwork in the geosciences that are seeing increasing use in college courses. However, VFEs that are not easily located and implemented in courses by geoscience instructors have little to no value. This qualitative, descriptive study engaged five focus groups of U.S. college geoscience…

Attracting more students to the geosciences is imperative. We have an excellent opportunity to model an inclusive community, with hundreds of thousands of students passing through introductory college courses each year. A previous study documented gender and racial bias in physical geology textbooks. Six texts were reexamined to determine any…