EXPERIENCING GEOSCIENCE: ENABLING CRITICAL THINKING THROUGH UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH

Experiencing Geoscience is an undergraduate course at Duke University that enables students to learn by practicing all aspects of the research process. While the course content builds on introductory-level material, the primary learning goals are process oriented: students learn to form hypotheses, make observations, collect and analyze data, interpret results, and synthesize their work in a presentation. These skills, which are essential across all fields of science, are learned by actively participating in 3 research projects. In the Spring of 2006, the projects centered on a local dam and reservoir, where students explored climate proxies and local climate variability, the relationship between land use and reservoir sedimentation, and the influence of bedrock geology on dam design. Unlike the traditional lab-lecture format, Experiencing Geoscience meets weekly in 2.5 hr sessions, with the addition of 2 to 3 Saturday field trips. This arrangement provides the flexibility to schedule appropriate periods of time for individual learning activities. Designed to guide students through the research process, the learning activities include field and lab work, geospatial analysis, lectures, background reading, case studies, class discussion, and peer review of papers. The class has been successively offered for 3 consecutive years and has encountered difficulties (i.e., striking the proper balance between tutorial and conceptual understanding for applied technology) and successes (i.e. the progressive development of independent and critical thinking by students). Since the class is designed and taught entirely by graduate students, the projects are based on the strengths and interests of the instructors. The projects could be easily modified, however, to address content-based goals for an upper-level course, or to collaborate with community organizations for a service-learning course.