DEVELOPING WEB-DELIVERED AND VIDEO-ENHANCED LEARNING TOOLS FOR INTRODUCTORY EARTH SCIENCE CLASSES

This presentation summarizes ongoing efforts to develop web-based learning tools that make use of streaming video to increase interest in and improve understanding of earth science within introductory classes. Current efforts focus on mineral identification, a mainstay laboratory activity for all introductory geology classes. Mineral identification provides valuable hands-on opportunities to develop observational skills, to relate physical characteristics of hand specimens to their underlying chemistry, and to test hypotheses that lead to the correct identification of samples. However, conventional in-person laboratories face a number of logistic and pedagogic challenges, particularly for large introductory classes. Access to collections and the cost of maintaining high quality mineral collections may be difficult. Also, some students, while intrigued by minerals, lose interest in earth science because they do not fully appreciate how mineral identification in the lab relates to the world around them.

Our learning tools address these concerns by improving access and allowing students to manipulate sample images on-line, and by linking lab-based identification to field-based observation. Furthermore, our tools use streaming video that allows students to repeatedly test samples and use sound as well as sight as a diagnostic tool (e.g. scratching streak plates). They also may fracture samples and observe reactions with acid, two tests that are not always used in conventional labs because they destroy samples and/or present a safety hazard. The most innovative aspects of our learning tools involves links from mineral identification to video-based virtual field trips that examine local outcrops, as well as links to more advanced petrographic analysis of samples. Preliminary assessment data for some components of our learning tools indicates that students find them interesting, and that the enhanced visualization provided by digital video significantly improves the educational value of the tools. We also find that our tools increase interest in earth science in general and, as such, we are presently developing recruiting tools that also make use of streaming video.