MYPLACE: A PLACE-BASED LEARNING PROJECT FOR NON-SCIENCE MAJORS IN AN INTRODUCTORY EARTH SYSTEMS COURSE

Here we share the "MyPlace" project and evidence that it enhances understanding, awareness, and appreciation of the earth sciences for introductory college students. “Dynamic Earth” is a general education course designed for non-science majors. The overall course goal is to help students develop an understanding of how the earth works, how it influences everyone, and how individual choices influence the earth. Students participate in a lecture and a laboratory section, with the weekly lab including both a hands-on component and a place-based semester long project named “MyPlace.” This project allows the students to choose a geographic location that has personal meaning, and apply a topic to their location as they learn about it in lecture and lab. For example, when students learn about natural resources, they research and create a PowerPoint slide discussing the natural resources found and used at their location, and how these have influenced their place. The project results in an end-of-semester PowerPoint presentation about the geology and human use of their meaningful place. This assignment leverages each student’s attachment to a particular place to encourage them to think about how geology applies to a special place and how the actions we humans take today will determine its future. It also provides a convenient way for the student to track their learning as they get to know their location geologically.

The purpose of this explanatory mixed method study was to examine the MyPlace project’s impact on students’ attitude toward and interest in earth science, in the context of overall course content learning gains and attitude changes. Data were collected in two Dynamic Earth lecture sections and corresponding lab sections though a pre/post course attitude and knowledge survey and a mixed Likert-type item and open response questionnaire (N=115). A subset of 26 students participated in a 20-30 minute interview addressing aspects of the project that students found most and least valuable. Overall, students valued the freedom to pick a place that interested them, how the project was spread out over the semester, and the variety of topics. Students found finding appropriate information about their locations (especially private properties or local parks), and finding information about specific topics challenging.