GAINING CONCEPTUAL AWARENESS OF EARTH SCIENCE IN AN INTRODUCTORY OCEANOGRAPHY COURSE: IS IT POSSIBLE?

There are five introductory courses offered by the Earth and Environmental Science (EES) Department at the University of Pennsylvania: Introduction to Geology, Oceanography, Natural Disturbances and Human Disasters, Earth and Life through Time, and Environmental Earth Science. These serve as introductory courses for our majors, but primarily aim to help produce a scientifically literate undergraduate student body at the University. As part of our recent undergraduate curriculum revisions, the EES Department has embarked on a large-scale effort to define curriculum objectives for each of our two majors as well as for non-majors taking our courses. This presentation will report on our methods of assessment.

In order to outline our goals, we have used a “curriculum objective matrix”, with the rows filled by skills and content knowledge objectives, and the columns indicating the course or other activity in which the objective is addressed and the degree to which it is addressed (scale of 1-5, with 1 being a brief introduction to the concept/skill and 5 being in-depth). A few of the broad categories of objectives most relevant to this presentation include the following: The Hydrosphere; Lithosphere: Earth Materials and History; Atmosphere; Interactions: Earth Systems; Interactions: Natural Hazard, Society and the Human Interaction with the Environment; Research Skills; Interpretive and Critical Evaluation Skills; and Quantitative Data Analysis Skills.

Currently we assess our curriculum objectives with teaching evaluations, graduation surveys, feedback from the Undergraduate Advisory Board and alumni, course final examinations, and senior theses. However, these methods of assessment are most applicable to assessing outcomes for our majors. Therefore, examples of methods of assessment—particularly focused on how well students understand the scientific process and fundamental principles of Earth Science—tried in our Oceanography course will be presented. These examples include before- and after-lecture in-class writing examples; field-trip write-ups, and a follow-up questionnaire taken one year after the course.