Economics, education, psychology, art, and business majors come to Earth 101, many dreading their one required science course. The quickest way to confirm the suspicions of these science-wary students is to ignore their presence in the classroom and just Impart our Scientific Knowledge. Cognitive studies have shown that for students to feel motivated to learn, they have to feel that the information is personally relevant.

In the past, the professors lectured, the students crammed for exams. By ignoring the opinions and knowledge that the students bring to the class, we miss the opportunity to use their background to help them learn. The difference in Earth 101 is that we show the students that we value the perspectives of other disciplines and are eager to hear how they weave into the story. We allow the students to come to grips with science through their own discovery and on their own terms.

Can a pickup truck really drive across a lava flow? What questions would you need to ask to find out? The purpose of Earth 101 is to investigate natural disasters using the popular media as a starting point. Using excerpted segments from "disaster movies" and scientific documentaries we identify the causes, consequences, and public perceptions of natural disasters. The course is taught as an integrated lecture; we lecture about 25% of the time with the rest of the time taken up in discussions, movie clips, in-class activities, and a great deal of group work. There are no exams; students are graded on a series of collaborative projects such as informational brochures, participation in debates and student-produced videos. In addition, many of the education majors create innovative teaching modules.

By putting Hollywood movies in a scientific framework, students retain factual knowledge. Many classes stop there. However, we take the extra step and encourage our students to make the knowledge they’ve gained relevant to their lives. We want them to question what they see on TV and in movies, to unconsciously develop a little skepticism about how science is portrayed in the popular media. We also hope the students gain a better feel that science is neither stagnant... nor necessarily precise.