INTERACTIVE DIGITAL LEARNING FOR GEOSCIENCE STUDENTS: EARTHQUIZ AND OTHER WEB-HOSTED CHALLENGES

Digital pedagogies are becoming prevalent in educational environments, in part because they focus on student-driven, inquiry-based learning. For geoscience students, web-hosted learning modules have the additional advantage of functioning as virtual field experiences by utilizing imagery from an amazing array of locations around the Earth. In addition, web-hosted learning modules can be coded to constrain the user experience to focus on chosen tasks and reduce extraneous distractions. We have designed several of these "challenges" to target student learning at various levels of experience.

EarthQuiz.net uses existing web-hosted imagery such as Google Street View, Photo Spheres, GigaPans, and static images to enable crowd-sourced creation, web-based delivery, and auto-scoring of interactive exercises. Enrolled students and informal guest users are challenged to identify and locate geologic features around the globe. The concept originated when we noticed that Google Street View scenes often showed geologically-relevant content, including: rocks and structures exposed in road-cuts or outcrops; landscape features such as mountains, lakes, and coastlines; surface processes such as landslides, glaciation, and erosion; and even underwater scenes of marine environments. Instructors can organize EarthQuiz questions into regional or topical collections, create course modules, and assign homework that is auto-scored and scaffolded by the computer.

Learning environments under development include a Structural Geology Mapping Challenge, where advanced geology students use virtual tools to evaluate, characterize, and map a classic folded terrain in Wyoming, an interactive demonstration called Reasons for the Seasons, which addresses common misconceptions about factors that influence our seasonal cycles, and an interactive graticule that can be used to find paleo-Euler poles, earthquake shadow zones, and other global features.

The GEODE team includes: H. Almquist, S. Burgin, C. Cervato, F. Coba, C. Constants, E. Cooper, M. Dordevic, M. Dudek, B. Fitzwater, B. Gomez, T. Hansen, P. Karabinos, T. Pavlis, J. Piatek, A. Pitts, R. Rohrback, W. Richards, C. Robinson, J. Rollins, J. Ryan, R. Schott, K. St. John, B. Tewksbury, and G.R. Whittaker. Supported by NSF DUE 1323419 and Google Geo Curriculum Awards.