DEVELOPING INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY FOR RECRUITING MIDDLE- AND HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENTS FOR CAREERS IN EARTH SCIENCE: A CASE-STUDY FROM RADFORD UNIVERSITY, VIRGINIA

In recent years, a variety of instructional technologies have been designed to enhance learning in the Earth Sciences for students ranging from K through 16 levels. Examples of such teaching-learning modules have included JAVA applets powering real-time feedback and FLASH animations on the internet, Quick Time Virtual Reality exercises that utilize a combination of images, audio-video clips and text, and stand-alone DVD-ROMs and CD-ROMs. Regardless of which specific instructional technology is used for design, it is imperative that all instructional technology modules be based on proven pedagogical models that seek to address the omni-present diversity of learner styles in any student population or learning environment. This presentation will showcase a total of three multimedia, instructional CD-ROMs that were designed wholly in-house at Radford University with the goal of communicating Earth Science content in a more dynamic, engaging manner for Middle- and High School levels. The first CD-ROM deals with educating students about ground-water pollution issues using state-of-the-art multimedia design techniques and proven learning models. This CD-ROM highlights the connections between every-day living in a variety of groundwater environments and how common decisions by people have a quick and a direct impact on groundwater pollution. It is expected that this CD-ROM can serve as a stimulus for attracting students to working in the Earth Sciences once they realize the immediacy and interconnectedness of decision-making and impact on the environment. The other two CD-ROMs have been developed for showcasing a sizeable mineral and rock collection housed in a museum in the area. These CD-ROMs contain not only a multimedia treatment of the impressive samples in this collection but also the variety of tools and techniques that geologists use to study such minerals and rocks such as – preparation of thin-sections, and use of the petrologic and Scanning Electron Microscopes. Efforts are now being focused on an efficient dissemination of these affordable ($5/CD) CD-ROMs so that they can be used by students and teachers at the grass-roots level both at the regional and national scales.