ENERGY ISSUES IN GEOSCIENCE

We have recently developed a sustainable energy science track within our Environmental Earth Science B.S. degree program. This popular track includes lecture and laboratory courses in fossil fuel energy resources, energy conservation, and alternative energy. To serve the students in this track and traditional geoscience majors, we have developed an upper-division course that addresses energy topics of interest to geoscience professionals. The course, Energy Issues in Geoscience, deals with some active research areas in applied geoscience that involve energy resources and are cutting edge and controversial. Students study, discuss, and write about the science background and policy implications of topics such as Climate Change, Peak Oil, Clean Coal, methane hydrates, the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository, geothermal energy, and the Cape Wind Project. Students learn about the geoscience underlying these fields and the controversies that have developed; they also learn to identify the important research questions that geoscientists and other scientists must answer in order to resolve these controversies and uncertainties. This course has been developed as a writing-intensive student-centered seminar. For each topic, the instructor assigns reading from the scientific literature, explains the core concepts, and describes the associated practical and economic motivations and constraints. Students investigate the science and policy literature to explore the controversies and methods for resolving these controversies. Students also examine federal research programs, the current availability of research support, and technical careers in these areas of geoscience. So, this course also serves to help students explore future career options in this rapidly developing geosciences field. Working in teams, students write brief papers and give presentations about each topic and also complete a term project. In the presentation of this paper, we will describe some examples of student work.