POE--USING THE INTERNET FOR PERSONALIZED LEARNING IN A LARGE ENROLLMENT INTRODUCTORY EARTH SCIENCE CLASS

A major challenge facing instructors of large enrollment introductory Earth science courses is making the class interesting to individual students while keeping it general enough for the student body as a whole. Each fall at Syracuse University, an Introduction to Earth Sciences course is offered in two sections. This course has a combined enrollment of >600 students and meets twice weekly for lecture and once a week in recitation sections with < 25 students. The larger of the two lecture sections has begun incorporating data from the WWW into the recitation portion. During the first recitation of the semester, the students are given a handout explaining a semester-long project entitled "Piece of Earth" or POE. The POE exercise consists of nine assignments, for which geologic and environmental data are to be obtained from the WWW with respect to the student's hometown. The POE exercises generally coincide with broader lecture topics and include obtaining data on topography, bedrock geology, hydrogeology, environmental issues (including flora and fauna), regional tectonics, etc. The students present their data as a professional poster during the last recitation session. By relating general Earth science to hometowns, the students were able to take something very personal away from the class. Surprisingly, many of the students did not know how to use the internet, in particular, the ability to access different search engines and websites and download and print the information they found. However, by the end of the project, even the most timid student could search out information on science issues. One of the added bonuses to this project is that students, by networking, learn about the geology of different portions of the United States and world from others in their class.