TRANSLATING ENGINEERING ACCREDITATION CRITERIA INTO APPLIED GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION

The field of engineering education has many overlapping goals with applied geoscience education: both emphasize the application of knowledge, both build towards a capstone design or field experience, both focus of developing capabilities and not just exposure to concepts or accumulation of knowledge, and both rely heavily on real-world examples and case studies. The heart of engineering is the use of technical knowledge to solve practical problems, which could serve as a definition for applied geoscience as well. There is a well-established mechanism to ensure that engineering programs accomplish these goals, in the form of engineering accreditation, which programs must pass every six years. Accreditation criteria include both general criteria applied to all engineering disciplines, and program criteria, which apply to specific disciplines such as geological engineering. The eleven general criteria require programs to demonstrate that students have attained outcomes such as “ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to analyze and interpret data,” and “ability to function on multidisciplinary teams.” The six geological engineering criteria outline the abilities graduates should have in geological problem solving, 3-D and 4-D visualization, and application of principles of geology, among other skills. Examples of pedagogical approaches to address each of these criteria are given, many of which focus on solving real world problems (every map has a purpose, every laboratory assignment answers a real question), case studies, “war” stories, handling numerical datasets, solving open-ended problems, and requirements of written and oral presentations developed in groups.