INTEGRATING EARTH SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING IN A FIELD-BASED COURSE FOR TEACHERS

Since 1999, Michigan Tech has offered a summer field course for practicing Earth science teachers. The course, Geology of Utah’s National Parks, is designed to give teachers experience working in the field using the tools and approaches commonly employed by undergraduate geology students in an extended field camp. There is a need for courses such as this because many Earth science teachers are teaching out-of-field as they lack endorsement and a college major (or both) in geoscience.

Recent updates to the course incorporate engineering applications of Earth science. New content was incorporated in anticipation of the release of the new Framework for K-12 Science Education which includes a call for integration among the disciplines and inclusion of engineering in the education of K-12 students. Our efforts are intended to demonstrate why and how engineers address real-world problems related to Earth science. By investigating problems using approaches and methods drawn from both Earth science and engineering, we address multiple concepts simultaneously and demonstrate how basic geology and engineering concepts are relevant to teachers and students in rural and urban environments.

Earth science/engineering aspects of the course focus on two broad areas – water and energy. For the water module, geologic investigations of fluvial deposits are contextualized through engineering-based analysis of fluid flow and sediment transport in the modern-day Colorado River. For the energy module, the relevance of naturally occurring radioactive minerals are investigated as they relate to economic development (mining, milling, and power generation), environmental pollution, and long-term storage of hazardous materials. Through these two modules the course addresses each of the three dimensions of the new Science Education Framework and each of the disciplinary core ideas for Earth and Space Science and Engineering, Technology, and the Applications of Science. This is an example of how the new requirement to include engineering in the curriculum can be accomplished through the deepening of existing curricula rather than addition of new and disconnected material. Examples of integrating other concepts such as weather/alternative energy will also be presented.