COMPARING GEOSCIENCES-RELATED ENGAGEMENT GENERATED DURING AND AFTER THE USE OF MULTIPLE PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES: ANIMATED VIDEOS, YOUTUBE, INTERACTIVE EDUCATIONAL GAMES, GROUP DISCUSSION AND POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased educators’ reliance on online learning tools such as Blackboard Collaborate Ultra and Zoom meetings to deliver geoscience-related lessons in real-time. Assessments were conducted using introduction to geology, environmental geology, and oceanography - part of the City University of New York\u27s (CUNY) newly implemented pathways curriculum. These general education courses belong to scientific world and life and physical sciences category and are intended for seamless transfer between CUNY campuses. Students, however, have the option to disengage from participation. Students are able to disable microphones and cameras, as well as rely entirely on text-chat if they choose. Students also have the option to simply log-on and not be physically present at all. If a practitioner does not advocate for forced participation via assigning a heavy weight of the course grade to participation, then the burden of bolstering engagement is almost entirely on the practitioner. This study attempts to review different pedagogical approaches and create a rubric to measure engagement during and after the delivery of the course contents. These approaches include short animated videos, long, medium, and short YouTube videos, interactive educational games, group discussions and debates, PowerPoint presentations, etc. The goal is to find approaches that deliver an effective learning, but still encourage organic class participation. Initial findings are as follows: short animated videos had the most total engagement with highly positively correlated with engagement during and after; long YouTube videos generated the most engagement during and after; single-player interactive educational games tied for highest total engagement and encouraged discussion during the game as well as after; short PowerPoint presentations with salient information did much better than longer presentations; and group discussions (when engaged upon) generated a moderate amount of total engagement. Trends included: length correlated positively with discussion during delivery, but negatively with discussion after delivery; intensity played no part in discussion during an activity, but correlated positively with discussion afterwards. In general, high intensity material of any kind, has been deemed the best

PALEOENVIRONMENT OF THE DEVONIAN FOSSILIFEROUS GLENERIE LIMESTONE, ROSENDALE, UPSTATE NEW YORK

The Devonian Glenerie limestone outcrops throughout the Hudson Valley and is believed to correlate with the glauconite-rich Oriskany sandstone elsewhere in upstate New York. Field inspection of well-preserved outcrops in Rosendale, upstate New York, indicated the Glenerie formation to be composed of both thin and thickly-bedded chert, interbedded shale, and both calcareous to arenaceous limestone. The Glenerie formation is dominated by spirifer arenosis fossil, which is the index fossil for this formation. The goal of this research is to determine the conditions of the paleoenvironment prevalent to the deposition of the Glenerie formation. Within the arenaceous layers are the spirifer arenosis, Rensselaeria, and the Murchisoni fossils, which are shells that were deposited in a shallow marine environment. The calcareous layers are greatly affected by weathering and erosion that exposed fossils and trapped artifacts. The lithology of the area of focus, the inter-lake area of Rosendale, New York, encompasses formations of sedimentary strata ranging from Ordovician to the Devonian periods. The inter-lake area is severely faulted and folded, resulting from the continents of Europe and North America colliding. The Glenerie formation is bordered by the Port Ewen limestone to the east, and the Esopus shale to the west. The lithological and faunal content of the Glenerie formation changed as the depositional environment changed from shallow to deep water. The fossils indicated organisms with thick shells and presumably provided protection from being winnowed away in a shallow high energy marine environment. The preserved fossil record, along with bedded chert in the Glenerie formation suggest fluctuation in sea level followed by rapid burial of organisms