While interdisciplinary collaboration is desired among researchers, traditional science instruction generally results in science disciplines being taught as separate entities. This study focuses on student understanding of concepts at the intersection of two isolated disciplines--geoscience and bioscience--across two purposeful samples of…

This paper concerns children's relations with the geological aspects of digital media technologies. Using ideas from media theory, I develop a new conceptual framework for childhood studies research on digital media that goes beyond the dominant focus on children's use of technology. I argue that studies of use would benefit from being linked up…

A future instructor's teaching beliefs contribute to whether they will use research-validated teaching strategies. We surveyed and interviewed potential future geoscience faculty as represented by graduate students and post-doctoral scholars to characterize their teaching beliefs, evaluate changes in those beliefs over time, and identify…

Spatial skills are embedded in all aspects of the geosciences. The teaching and learning of spatial skills has been a challenging, but vital, endeavor. To support student learning of spatial skills in undergraduate courses, we designed scaffolds for spatially dependent content in a mid-level geoscience course using playdough to allow students to…

The purpose of this study was to examine middle school students' gestures during a geological field trip. Previous research on gestures has focused on understanding human development and exploring students' gestures can be helpful in improving understanding of students' communication in learning environments. In this study, middle school students…

This article draws from a Teaching and Learning Research Initiative research project that aimed to explore how three early childhood centres support children to experience and learn about their local area, including its stories, geology, biodiversity, and cultural meanings. The project helps children envision socioecological futures. This article…

In this integrative, team-based capstone project, students in an upper year Tectonics course built a planet of their own design from the basic concepts of plate tectonics. They created a tectonic map complete with plate boundaries, continental-ocean boundaries, motion vectors, and hot spot traces. In subsequent weeks, students produced a geologic…

We present a quantitative study of responses to voluntary and anonymous surveys of undergraduate geology students enrolled at an English-medium, research university in South Africa. This research captured student interest in geology, their perceived level of understanding of key geological concepts, and the extent to which in-class and in-field…

Over the years, there has been an underrepresentation of Black males in the Geotechnical Engineering field in the United States. White men have dominated the Geotechnical Engineering sector, and that practice continues today. According to Fatourou et al. (2019), the disparity of Blacks in the engineering workforce is a universal matter that speaks…

A day-long geoscience educational module, "Sharing and Learning: The Natural Environments of Acoma Pueblo," provided an opportunity to explore the various connections that Acoma Pueblo community members make between their cultural values and geologic concepts. The purpose of such an exploration is to make explicit the cultural…

The unequal distribution of natural resources is the direct result of past geologic processes. Once a promising region is located, geologists use a variety of techniques to find the materials and energy that society consumes. Their tools can be as simple as a hand lens or as sophisticated as a satellite. Along the way, exploration geologists and…

Students struggle with observing scientifically and connecting observations to scientific theory. This study investigates how students actually use observation in rock classification -- a classical practical task in science education. To describe the level of students' use of observation, data was collected by videotaping 19 small student groups…

In a Fall 2017 introductory course in Environmental Geology, homework assignments alternated between traditional textbook chapters in an electronic format and adaptive learning platform (ALP) modules on the Smart Sparrow (www.smartsparrow.com) platform to assess student preference for and satisfaction with either modality. Few studies have…

Technical writing skills are widely considered to be critical for geologists and engineers. Iterative practice with technical writing throughout the undergraduate curriculum represents a common mode by which students develop their skills. The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of an iterative practice and feedback model in the…

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…