{"title":"Assessing motivations, benefits, and barriers of implementing virtual field experiences in geoscience-related disciplines","authors":"Tyler G. Smith, Karen S. McNeal","doi":"10.1080/10899995.2023.2258760","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2023.2258760","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractOutdoor field experiences have long been part of the traditional curriculum in geoscience-related disciplines and are considered a key aspect of professional development in these areas. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancelation of many field excursions around the world, geoscience departments were forced to make abrupt changes to the ways students would be introduced to field study. Virtual field experiences, which were often utilized prior to COVID-19 in a variety of ways, including preparation for in-person fieldwork, increasing student interest, and increasing student accessibility, were developed and employed as alternative options to in-person field experiences. This embedded mixed-methods study used open, hierarchical coding schemes with referential category structure to code open-ended survey responses from 89 department heads and 27 instructors in geoscience-related departments across the U.S. The study was aimed at better understanding acceptance and familiarity with VFEs, motivations for use, and the benefits and barriers encountered during development and implementation. Binary quantitative data was collected to identify institution type, familiarity with, and motivation for the use of VFEs. Opportunities for student diversity, inclusion, and access for students from historically underrepresented groups (BIPOC, disabled students, women, and LGBTQ + students) were the most immediate benefits recognized. The most often cited barriers were time, skills, and resources needed to create VFEs and put them to use. As VFEs have been utilized in a variety of ways before and during COVID-19, it has become increasingly necessary to discuss the roles they will play going forward in academic and professional geoscience-related spaces.Keywords: VirtualfieldexperiencesgeosciencesCOVID-19 AcknowledgmentsThe authors would like to thank all of those who took the time to respond and offer input for each of these surveys. Thanks to Haylie Mikulak for serving as co-coder on the qualitative data, and to the Auburn Geocognition Lab, Dr. Laura Bilenker, and Dr. David Brink-Roby for their review and input on both surveys.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Southeastern section of the Geological Society of America under Grant 13454-22.","PeriodicalId":35858,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Geoscience Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136059156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Research studies for designing undergraduate geology courses and activities","authors":"K. Hannula","doi":"10.1080/10899995.2023.2254095","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2023.2254095","url":null,"abstract":"From designing virtual field experiences to addressing common misunderstandings to connecting geology coursework with careers and community concerns, geoscience education research can help inform effective geology teaching. This issue shares Research papers that can be applied in the development of undergraduate geology curricula. Virtual field experiences for both introductory and advanced geology students were already under development before COVID lockdowns brought them to the attention of the entire geology community. Ruberto and coauthors had developed virtual field trips to the Grand Canyon, and in this issue, they compare their results with an in-person trip. Although the two trips weren’t identical (the in-person trip involved a walk along the canyon rim, whereas the virtual trip included footage from the bottom of the canyon), the virtual trip showed impressive gains in both learning outcomes and student attitudes. In contrast, COVID travel restrictions pushed Guillaume, Laurent, and Genge to create 3D virtual projects to substitute for upper-level field work. The projects forced students to make their own choices about where to go and what to observe, as if they were in the field themselves. The virtual projects removed some sources of stress (such as weather, physical exhaustion, and difficulty in finding the instructors), but they still missed aspects of the psychomotor domain. These two studies show that active learning and student autonomy are important for both virtual and in-person field experiences to be effective. Introductory students often struggle with some of the core concepts that lead into the geology major. Minerals, for example, can be challenging because students bring prior ideas about crystals and rocks into the class. Manzanares, Anderson, and Pugh interviewed non-geology students about their alternate conceptions. I found some of their results quite surprising I hadn’t realized that students might think that mica cleavage was sedimentary layering, or that a mineral’s fragility was related to its age. Anyone who teaches an introductory geology class should read this paper to help understand why their students are often frustrated and confused in mineral labs. Plate tectonics can also be confusing for introductory students. Polifka, Cervato, and Holme hypothesized that spatial ability (as measured by perspective-taking, visualizing rotations, and the water-level task) might explain those struggles. They gave students several tests of spatial ability, and then had students take a quiz in which students could choose between several different ways to visualize plate boundaries to help them answer the questions. They found no relationship between the general spatial skills and the plate tectonics assessment scores. In upper-level courses, the struggles are different, but they continue (and might be related to the simplifications used to help introductory students). Kreager, LaDue, and Shipley looked at the errors that sed","PeriodicalId":35858,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Geoscience Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46937393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Using Indigenous research frameworks to enhance connections between Traditional Knowledge and Western science at Acoma Pueblo, NM","authors":"D. Reano, Carena Hasara","doi":"10.1080/10899995.2023.2246344","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2023.2246344","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35858,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Geoscience Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46034079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
P. McNeal, Deepika Menon, Deef Al Shorman, Paulina Gajewska-Schaefer
{"title":"Using drawing as a tool for investigating undergraduate conceptions of Earth scientists","authors":"P. McNeal, Deepika Menon, Deef Al Shorman, Paulina Gajewska-Schaefer","doi":"10.1080/10899995.2023.2246346","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2023.2246346","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35858,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Geoscience Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44421199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Welcome to the field: A survey on practices in introductory geoscience field skills in the USA","authors":"A. Shinneman","doi":"10.1080/10899995.2023.2243780","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2023.2243780","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35858,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Geoscience Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49330536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Drawing attention to attitudes toward scientists: Changes in 10- to 13-year-old students as a result of a GeoCamp experience in New Zealand","authors":"L. Milne, M. Cheng, J. Prebble","doi":"10.1080/10899995.2023.2229211","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2023.2229211","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35858,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Geoscience Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49163840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sasha McLaren, Eleanor C. R. Green, Mary Anderson, M. Finch
{"title":"The importance of active-learning, student support, and peer teaching networks: A case study from the world’s longest COVID-19 lockdown in Melbourne, Australia","authors":"Sasha McLaren, Eleanor C. R. Green, Mary Anderson, M. Finch","doi":"10.1080/10899995.2023.2242071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2023.2242071","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35858,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Geoscience Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46677971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
K. Eitel, Alicia Wheeler, K. Seven, J. Pinkham, Teresa Cavazos Cohn, Christina Uh, Ethan White Temple, Melinda Davis, Joyce McFarland, John J. Eitel, Marcie Carter, R. Dixon, Lee Vierling
{"title":"Culturally sustaining pedagogy in an outdoor environmental science education program to support high school students’ identities as Indigenous people and scientists","authors":"K. Eitel, Alicia Wheeler, K. Seven, J. Pinkham, Teresa Cavazos Cohn, Christina Uh, Ethan White Temple, Melinda Davis, Joyce McFarland, John J. Eitel, Marcie Carter, R. Dixon, Lee Vierling","doi":"10.1080/10899995.2023.2228170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2023.2228170","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35858,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Geoscience Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42234990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jasmin Graham, Gina Hodsdon, Aly Busse, M. P. Crosby
{"title":"BIPOC voices in ocean sciences: A qualitative exploration of factors impacting career retention","authors":"Jasmin Graham, Gina Hodsdon, Aly Busse, M. P. Crosby","doi":"10.1080/10899995.2022.2052553","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2022.2052553","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The aim of this study was to understand the factors that impact the recruitment and retention of scientists that identify as Black, Indigenous or as People of Color (BIPOC). A total of 47 BIPOC participants who are currently working or have worked in the field of marine science were recruited using a non-probability snowball sampling method to participate in semi-structured interviews which were analyzed using Astin’s Input-Environment-Output framework and Social Cognitive Career Theory. Several interventions which have been put in place to address the systemic issues that have led to the exclusion of certain groups including BIPOC-focused programs, research experiences and mentorship were identified as having positive impacts on the cognitive-personal outcomes of sense of belonging (feeling of acceptance within a group), science identity (the self-categorization of one’s self as a ‘science person’) and self-efficacy (belief in one’s ability to succeed). Several factors including discrimination, lack of allyship and negative research or mentorship experiences were identified as factors that greatly reduce these cognitive-personal outcomes. In addition, all three interviewees who left the field of marine science mentioned research experiences where they felt unsupported as a contributing factor to them leaving the field. This study serves to exemplify that systemic issues that have been observed in other STEM fields exist in the ocean science field as well. The study uses a novel framework to present and analyze trends in the experiences of BIPOC ocean scientists around the world. Supplemental data for this article can be acceessed here.","PeriodicalId":35858,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Geoscience Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48305650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}