INTEGRATING CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY ISSUES INTO THE TRADITIONAL EARTH SCIENCE CURRICULUM AT EASTERN CONNECTICUT STATE UNIVERSITY

The Environmental Earth Science department at Eastern Connecticut State University has begun to incorporate climate change and energy issues into our existing Earth Science curriculum, and is developing new courses that integrate these topics with traditional geology subjects. We have modified our introductory physical geology course that is taken by science and non-science majors to include lecture content and a laboratory exercise on natural geochemical/climatic cycles and human impacts on these systems, as well as a unit on anthropogenic climate change and peak oil as examples of how scientists use hypotheses to model natural systems. A laboratory exercise in this course also requires students to explore future adaptation to climate change. We are developing a new freshmen-level course entitled The Geology of Natural Resources that covers most of the traditional content of a physical geology course, but subject matter is applied to geology's role in energy resources and climate change. Each unit in the syllabus covers both basic scientific concepts and practical applications to societal issues. This course can be taken to fulfill university-wide science requirements for non-science majors, and also serves as an optional gateway into the Environmental Earth Science major in place of physical geology. We have also developed a course entitled Energy in the 21st Century to satisfy a university-wide liberal arts colloquium requirement. This course explores many energy-related issues that our society will face, and includes both scientific content such as geologic controls on the formation and distribution of fossil fuel deposits, natural climate cycles, anthropogenic change, and renewable energy technologies, as well as content on energy and climate-change policy, including organized debates between students groups, a mock international climate change summit, and discussions on how energy issues impact US foreign policy. Future plans include development of advanced-level courses on the geology of energy deposits that will be incorporated into the newly formed Sustainable Energy Studies program at ECSU. This presentation will include samples of lecture material, class exercises, assignments, and assessment methods from the above-described courses.