INTRODUCTORY GEOSCIENCE LABS THAT DEVELOP QUANTITATIVE SCIENTIFIC SKILLS

Introductory geoscience courses are commonly non-quantitative, primarily due to enrollment concerns or inadequate computer resources. This is a disservice to students and the geosciences. Students are social beings who commonly underestimate their capacity to understand or perform mathematics, viewing quantitative topics as a threat to academic success (or just boring). To utilize expanding on-line data resources in the classroom (and for students to gain first-hand experience with scientific inquiry), the data-handling skills of students must be developed -- skills useful in almost any career a student may pursue. I have developed, and continue to refine, a series of projects for introductory geology laboratories to help develop basic quantitative skills. Key elements are (1) mutual peer support among students within a group-learning environment and (2) progressive development of useful basic skills in lab, lecture and homework that are scaled to the mathematical skills of high school graduates. Questions addressed through projects include how basic quantities (e.g., time, temperature, length, mass) are measured and how the associated error is quantified. How are numbers represented (e.g., significant figures, rounding conventions, scientific notation)? What statistics usefully characterize relationships within/among data sets? How are data represented graphically? How are static spatial quantities described (e.g., location of a point, shape of the ground surface)? How is change characterized (e.g., variations in some quantity with time or location)? How do we extrapolate across unsampled intervals given a finite data set? What is the utility of a mathematical model whose quantitative behavior mimics that of a natural system? How are interpretations developed and tested? Given well designed exercises with minimal jargon whose mathematical elements are fully explained with examples, these concepts are well within the capabilities of undergraduates.