ANALYSIS OF STUDENT CONCEPTIONS OF GLOBAL EARTHQUAKE AND VOLCANO OCCURRENCE

A purposeful sample of 80 maps was collected from students enrolled in an entry-level geology course at a Midwestern institution. This sample was purposeful as this exercise was used during instruction as a means of eliciting student ideas and generating discussion. All students present during the day of instruction (70% of enrollees) completed the activity, and maps were copied for later research analysis with human subjects approval. Students were provided with a global base map in the Robinson projection, and were asked to mark locations where they believed a) volcanoes and b) large, frequent earthquakes occurred. Map collection occurred prior to instruction on these phenomena. Students were also asked to explain the meaning that “frequent” held for them in relation to earthquakes; a similar pre-instruction exercise related to volcanoes provided insight into student understanding of the volcano concept. Maps were scanned into digital format and analyzed quantitatively using ArcGIS 9.2. Preliminary analysis examined the frequencies of mapped features and students identifying features within 5 degree grid cells. Analysis of these data indicates that some students have difficulty using the map, with 20 percent of students marking at least one location outside of the actual map area (2.7 percent of total mapped features). Many students placed one or both phenomena along the Pacific Ring of Fire, although a few students mistook the east coast of Africa for this feature. While the summary of total number of earthquakes shows general recognition of the Ring of Fire, a high number of students tended to map earthquakes in very specific locations, including the North American west coast, India, and Japan. Many students also indicated at least one earthquake in the Indian Ocean. Volcanoes were positioned with much less precision by students, resulting in a more general trend near the Ring of Fire with additional volcanoes wherever islands were indicated by the base map across all oceanic regions. Specific volcanic regions mapped by a high number of students included the North American west coast and the islands of Hawaii. Overall, we suggest that students either do not deeply understand the relationship between plate tectonics and volcanoes and earthquakes, or are unable to locate major plate boundaries on a map.