COMEDY IN THE GEOSCIENCES II

Translating the lived experiences of geoscientists and students into comedic performance is a creative endeavor inspired by Earth science. Three performances of geoscience-themed sketch comedy are presented. The first sketch is aimed primarily at practitioners, and makes humor of efforts to structure meaningful, data-centered interactions in the research laboratory. The second vignette is a take on student-teacher interactions in the geoscience classroom, and is suitable for both practitioners and students.

The third performance is aimed at novice Earth science students. Many such students use their newly acquired content knowledge to engage friends and family in discussions about anthropogenic climate change. However, these discussions can generate excessive conflict in the social group, with minimal exchange of authentic knowledge. In this sketch, the presenters draw on both personal experience and collective wisdom to offer advice to students, including (not) mixing science and alcohol intake at family gatherings, deflecting anti-science sentiment and identifying friendly teachable moments. While this presentation is live-action, it can be produced in video format and released to students through learning-management systems (LMS). An appropriate release time would be immediately prior to winter holidays.