REAL WORLD EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES–STRATEGIES FOR EDUCATING THE NON-SCIENTIST ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES MAJOR WITH CASE STUDIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL GEOMORPHOLOGY AND SEDIMENTOLOGY

In the past decade, geology departments at many institutions have become core or supporting departments for a liberal arts-based undergraduate Environmental Studies (ES) major. As a result, large-enrollment classes in introductory and mid-level geology courses may contain students with an extremely wide range of backgrounds in quantitative analysis. Yet geoscience courses may be the ES student's only exposure to quantitative methods in scientific research.

ES students often anticipate that they will pursue careers in environmental fields that are not fundamentally scientific, such as law, policy, advocacy, or education. However, few will actually find positions in which they are never called upon to understand or critically evaluate scientific data and interpretations. The geoscience courses they take should therefore provide them with several fundamental concepts and skills:

· familiarity with research methodologies in earth-surface and near-surface processes

· understanding the difference between empirical and theoretical solutions

· appreciation for error and uncertainty in scientific research

· appreciation for the three-dimensionality of earth processes

· some facility with earth science literature

· clear understanding of the connection between surface and ground water systems

· an introduction to earth systems thinking, and the interdependence of processes in the solid earth, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere

· understanding of rates of geomorphic change, in both natural and disturbed systems

In order to develop these concepts and skills, a series of field and laboratory research projects was designed, primarily for use in courses in Geomorphology and Sedimentology, although each could be adapted for use in a lab course in Environmental Geology. This poster will present six “real-world” research projects that are accessible to students with limited mathematical background: 1)Thinking in orders of magnitude - estimating stream flow; 2)Environmental problem solving - sediment transport of tailings piles; 3)Humans as Agents of Geomorphic Change –rates of removal in local quarries; 4)Paleo-flood hydrology - determining pre-damming flood stages; 5)Land-use and misuse - Pleistocene dune reactivation; 6)Climate and landscape change - speculating on the future.