Development of an Assessment of Student Conception of the Nature of Science

This article describes a study in which a series of general education and introductory science courses were assessed using a Likert-scale instrument. As universities across the country have begun to make changes in their science curricula, especially with regards to non-science majors, assessment of courses and curricula has lagged behind implementation. The Likert-scale instrument, Attitudes and Conceptions in Science (ACS), provides a means by which faculty can determine the partial effectiveness of introductory and general education science courses. The established validity and reliability of this test suggests that its use in a variety of courses could allow identification of specific teaching methods, content, or other course characteristics that promote scientific literacy. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

Qualitative Analysis of College Students' Ideas about the Earth: Interviews and Open-Ended Questionnaires

NOTE: This is a large file, 165.8 mb in size! This article describes a study in which students' conceptual understanding about the Earth was examined. In the study, students enrolled in introductory science courses at four institutions, completed open-ended questionnaires, and participated in interviews. The institutions consisted of a small private university, two large state schools, and one small public liberal arts college. Students were probed on a variety of topics related to the Earth's crust and interior, and to geologic time. Analysis of questionnaire and interview responses indicates that students hold a number of non-scientific ideas about the Earth. Additionally, students apply a range of ontological categories to geologic phenomena, with significant implications for teaching geosciences from a systems perspective. Educational levels: Graduate or professional, Graduate or professional

Engaging Students in Earthquakes via Real-Time Data and Decisions

The topic of earthquakes appears in virtually all introductory undergraduate geoscience courses. Most students entering these courses already have some knowledge of earthquakes and why they occur, but that knowledge often derives from the most recent event in the news and can therefore be biased toward the most destructive earthquakes. In addition, students arrive at college with misconceptions, perhaps picked up from erroneous or poorly presented media coverage. These misconceptions can go unchecked or even be reinforced by introductory textbooks, most of which contain errors and oversimplifications about earthquake processes

Who is the Practitioner in Faculty-Staff Sexual Misconduct Work?: Views from the UK and US

This article maps and compares four universities’ policies and procedures for addressing faculty and staff sexual misconduct in higher education in the UK and US. While universities have engaged in significant work to grapple with student-student sexual misconduct, attention to misconduct perpetrated, and experienced, by higher education employees is relatively nascent. In this paper, we explore the maze of institutional processes and actors that victim-survivors of FASSM might encounter. We describe what is known about prevalence of FASSM in the US and UK and offer an overview of the policy landscape in both settings. Inspired by Patricia Yancey Martin, we analyze publicly available policy documents on FASSM from two US and two UK universities and map out visually the range of investigative, reporting, and sanctioning processes. We introduce an analytic distinction between an actor and a practitioner within the FASSM context, whereby actors are those tasked with administrative duties in handling sexual misconduct reports, while practitioners are those with specialized knowledge and training that enables them to prioritize victim-survivor needs. These illustrative diagrams suggest that while university employees are tasked to act on reports and disclosures of sexual misconduct, it is difficult to identify specialist practitioners with expertise to support victim-survivors of FASSM. Ultimately, this work provides a deeper understanding of what practice looks like in relation to higher education FASSM, and we outline implications for future research directions

The Power of Demographic and High School Experience Factors on Geoscience Success

A growing body of literature documents that demographic and high school experience factors correlate with academic achievement in higher education. The most significant variables influencing entry-level college science success include gender, age, high school GPA, high school class, and socio-economic status variables (Hedges and Nowell, 1995; Caldas and Bankston, 1997; Sadler and Tai, 2007). Although this previous work suggests that non-cognitive variables can be used to predict success in some sciences, the geological sciences were overlooked in this prior work. This study aims to examine the relationship between demographic and high school experience factors and student understanding of geosciences, exposed by the Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI; Libarkin and Anderson 2005). More than 2500 entry-level students from 38 colleges and universities located in 22 states of the United States completed a 19-item version of the GCI, coupled with a background form requesting gender, high school GPA, birth date, major, race, high school science experience, and highest degree of male and female parents. The results of the Pearson productmoment correlation revealed a small to medium size effect between the GCI scores and gender, high school GPA, race, female and male guardian education level, enrollment in high school physics, and institutional type. The multiple stepwise linear regression analysis indicated that gender, high school GPA, race, enrollment in high school physics, and institutional type appeared to be the best predictors for student success on the GCI. Overall, these predictors account for less than 20% of the fluctuation in GCI pre- or post-test scores, indicating that the GCI is a good measure of geoscience understanding across populations

Tertiary remagnetization of Paleozoic rocks from the Eastern Cordillera and sub-Andean Belt of Bolivia

Paleomagnetic samples were collected from 98 sedimentary horizons in eight different Devonian to Permian sedimentary units at eight localities in the Eastern Cordillera and the sub-Andean Belt of Bolivia. For 77 sites, thermal demagnetization allowed determination of a characteristic magnetization (ChRM) with site-mean 95% confidence limit, α95, ≤15°. The ChRM is carried predominantly or entirely by hematite. Fold and reversal tests from two of the sampled localities indicate that the characteristic magnetization is synfolding, likely acquired during the earliest stages of deformation. Additionally, a modified conglomerate test at one locality and the nearly uniform direction of ChRM across the Devonian to Permian age units clearly reveals the secondary nature of the characteristic magnetization. Finally, the ChRM directions are discordant from any expected Paleozoic directions. Paleomagnetic poles calculated from the ChRM directions fall near the Cenozoic portion of the apparent polar wander path for South America. We interpret these observations to indicate widespread chemical remagnetization of these Paleozoic strata during, but prior to completion of, Cenozoic Andean folding

Resilience characteristics of the urban agriculture system in Lansing, Michigan: Importance of support actors in local food systems

Urban agriculture is a growing movement in cities across the United States, including the post-industrial Midwest. Maintaining a resilient local food system is a challenge given the environmental, resource, and institutional barriers facing urban farmers. In this descriptive correlational study, we take an in-depth look at the demographics, farm characteristics, motivations, barriers, and resilience indicators of individuals in the urban agriculture system in Lansing, Michigan, a city of the US Midwest with a growing urban agriculture system. Survey responses (n = 92) revealed that support actors, community gardeners, and farmers have descriptive differences in their motivations, with support actors (e.g. non-profits, university extension, or municipalities) being most strongly motivated by social and environmental justice. Community gardeners reported the lowest barriers to engaging in urban agriculture. Individuals who reported stronger motivations for building community and social and environmental justice showed significant correlations to several resilience indicators, indicating that those motivations may be important to system resilience. Urban agriculture support agencies report high barriers and are most often consulted for informational and social support. These results can inform recommendations for organizations, local governments, and researchers working in midwestern urban agriculture initiatives to better assess and promote a thriving system into the futur

Research on Cognitive Domain in Geoscience Learning: Temporal and Spatial Reasoning

The geosciences are characterized by their particular application of and reliance on temporal and spatial reasoning. Geoscientists must be able to apply their knowledge across a variety of scales. The ability to engage with this kind of task represents a great shift in thinking from where most students begin their studies, be that in K-12 or college. In order to understand how people\u27s ability to spatial and temporal reasoning changes over time requires identification of what skills are essential, assessment of those skills, and then exploration of the impacts of different targeted interventions in geoscience contexts. While more is known about how people reason spatially as compared with temporally, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of spatial reasoning in the geosciences. There are opportunities to build on lessons learned from previous investigations of spatial thinking (e.g. the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center), including how a community can investigate a specific line of reasoning. There is also a need to build on established research from other domains, from anthropology to cognitive science to physics. In this chapter the authors identified and describe three grand challenges to better understand the need for and growth of spatial and temporal reasoning in geoscience education. These include identifying what reasonings or skills are essential to the geosciences (both broadly and within subdisciplines), and the intertwined challenge of how to assess those reasonings and use those results to improve on what students are learning from their geoscience experiences

Rise of the Andes

The surface uplift of mountain belts is generally assumed to reflect progressive shortening and crustal thickening, leading to their gradual rise. Recent studies of the Andes indicate that their elevation remained relatively stable for long periods (tens of millions of years), separated by rapid (1 to 4 million years) changes of 1.5 kilometers or more. Periodic punctuated surface uplift of mountain belts probably reflects the rapid removal of unstable, dense lower lithosphere after long-term thickening of the crust and lithospheric mantle

An actionable anti-racism plan for geoscience organizations.

Geoscience organizations shape the discipline. They influence attitudes and expectations, set standards, and provide benefits to their members. Today, racism and discrimination limit the participation of, and promote hostility towards, members of minoritized groups within these critical geoscience spaces. This is particularly harmful for Black, Indigenous, and other people of color in geoscience and is further exacerbated along other axes of marginalization, including disability status and gender identity. Here we present a twenty-point anti-racism plan that organizations can implement to build an inclusive, equitable and accessible geoscience community. Enacting it will combat racism, discrimination, and the harassment of all members