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Caroline (Molly) Davies
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Earth System Science and the Urban Environment in Undergraduate CurriculaAbstract
The faculty of the Department of Geosciences and Environmental Studies Program plan to restructure program curricula around the concept of Earth system science with a focus on the urban environment. The objective in providing students with a strong science foundation is to emphasize the dynamic interconnection of processes across the atmospheric, geological, hydrologic, and biological systems.
To achieve the project objectives they will: 1. Restructure current courses and develop new courses from introductory through advanced levels using the Earth system science approach to examine critical intersections of physical systems and human landscapes; 2. Incorporate new teaching and assessment strategies that promote inquiry-based learning, emphasize technology, and develop critical thinking skills; 3. Focus teaching and student research on Earth system science at several scales of analysis in the urban environment; and 4. Create ESS resource space dedicated to student project design, analysis, and presentation. Curricular development will vertically integrate the Earth system science concept of dynamic inter- connection into introductory through advanced and capstone courses. The courses will be heavily inquiry-based, and urban environments will provide a broad focus for research. These courses presently fulfill degree requirements for geology, geography, and environmental science majors. They potentially will set the stage for a new program in Earth system science. These developments will also provide integrated system science training at the introductory level to a large and diverse audience, many of whom are pre-service teachers. The following curricular changes are proposed. 1. The introductory level course will be restructure using the Earth system science approach to provide a broad foundation in Earth science by examining critical intersections of the physical systems. Lectures will address questions in system science as well as provide foundational information. Weekly problem sets will be assigned and explained to facilitate the incorporation of quantitative problem solving. 2. A new team-taught sophomore level course in field applications and technology will be developed that is strongly multidisciplinary and inquiry-based. It will instruct students in the instrumentation skills needed to conduct a multidisciplinary, multiscale group research project. Group projects will be developed in the local area aimed at intersections of the natural and urban environment. Instrumentation for data analysis will include meteorological, geophysical, geochemical, GPS, and GIS. 3. An advanced course, Geo-Computational Methods for Earth System Science, will be created that utilizes large digital data sets to explore geo-environmental processes and feedbacks. It will be strongly quantitative and introduce students to a variety of statistical methods for analysis of complex, non-linear systems. 4. A new team-taught capstone course, Senior Practicum, will combine the Earth system science concepts and the application of research skills into individual research projects. Students will explore the idiom of science, followed by the practicum of doing science. The students will develop and conduct their own research module around a central theme, based on a location visited during spring break. Courses
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Earth System Science Education (410) 740-6220
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USRA | NASA Earth Science | NSF Geoscience | DLESE | SERC |
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