Topographic map-reading skills are critical for certain professions but can be difficult to learn. The purpose of this pilot study is to provide insight on the role augmented reality technology can play in the development of topographic map-reading skills. Using a situated cognition theoretical framework, this study tracks the development of…

COVID-19 has created challenges and opportunities across higher education, with flow-on effects for teaching, research, and publishing. Using an archival case study approach, we analyzed 543 Journal of Geoscience Education submissions from 2018 to 2020 to determine potential impacts of the pandemic on our authors and reviewers. Trends in…

Despite concerted efforts aimed at improving gender diversity in the discipline, the underrepresentation of women continues to persist in the geoscience domain. Research suggests that successful completion of introductory undergraduate STEM coursework is pivotal to the retention of students in STEM major programs and that spatial skills are…

Natural selection is a fundamental scientific process, yet students and educators alike demonstrate misconceptions of the process. Though images are used often in science to facilitate learning, it is less common to assess learners' understanding through their own drawings. This study utilizes a multiple-choice assessment of evolutionary processes…

Chapter 1 is a seismic study of the mantle structure of the passive margin of northeastern North America. This region experienced multiple episodes of rifting and orogenesis in the past, and the study aims to understand how the Wilson Cycle impacts the geometry of the upper mantle seismic structure beneath southern New England using Sp receiver…

This study investigated the impact of training in self-regulated learning on community college, geoscience students' achievement, metacognition, time management, and science motivation scales. The study also investigated the impact of SRL training on these outcomes as a function of gender and ethnicity. During the Fall of 2022, 70 community…

Sequence stratigraphic and Wheeler diagram interpretations require a strong combination of conceptual understanding and diagram reasoning skills. Students are generally exposed to the foundational concepts within sequence stratigraphy (relative sea level, eustasy, base level, and accommodation) in a variety of courses along their degree path,…

Active learning classrooms (ALCs) are designed to support collaborative learning in large class sections that are often taught with a lecture format. Studies on ALCs indicate that they have positive influences on student learning, but the same studies fail to look at learning differences between subgroups of students. In the current study,…

Water sciences education is paramount to sustainable groundwater resource management, especially of drinking water, but misunderstandings about groundwater among non-experts remain widespread. Groundwater residence is an especially challenging concept to learn because it is not directly visible in typical circumstances. The present study uses a…

Community-based learning is a strategy or model of learning management that integrates curricular content into the community using work based learning to encourage learners to learn from real-life situations in the community under the participation of teachers, learners and people in the community. The purposes of this research were to develop…

We used the social-cognitive choice model (Lent et al., 2018) as a framework for investigating academic and career choice in the domain of geoscience for male and female students. In addition, we explored the role of perceived connection to instructors and transformative experience as additional factors in the social-cognitive choice model. A…

It is widely acknowledged that understanding of science is key to becoming global citizens and to embrace technological advancements. Although research suggests that girl's performance in science has improved over the years, there are still concerns about the under-representation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)…

What teachers know about their content area plays a role in how they effectively enhance the scientific literacy of their students. This leads to questions about teacher content knowledge as they enter the field. The Praxis Earth and Space Science: Content Knowledge Test is the most widely used licensure assessment for aspiring Earth science…

Only 40% of geoscience undergraduate degrees are conferred on women. Little research has examined why more men tend to pursue and persist in geology degrees compared to women. We examined the reasons why undergraduate geology students chose to major in geology, with a particular emphasis on women. We collected data from 391 undergraduate students…

Studies have consistently documented that introductory geoscience students struggle with visualizing features presented on topographic maps. This is a problem that has the potential to increase in a digital age when engagement with maps consists primarily of GPS navigation via smartphones. Since the first augmented reality (AR) sandbox in 2012,…