USING A REMOTELY-ACCESSED SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE (SEM) TO EVALUATE SANDS IN A 2-YEAR COLLEGE EARTH SCIENCE EARTH SCIENCE CLASS

Integrating CUREs into 2-year college introductory earth science classes provides a means of engaging students in science inquiry early in their undergraduate experience. In this project, earth science students at Valencia College in Orlando, FL evaluate the provenance, depositional environment, and climate association of a variety of sands, including campus sands, by remotely accessing a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) housed at the Florida Center for Analytical Electron Microscopy.

The project includes 4 activities dispersed throughout the semester. On the first day of class, students collect campus sands and use reflective microscopes to make observations. For weeks 5 and 6, student teams rotate between evaluating sands with reflective microscopes and using the EDS to determine elemental content and mineralogy. For weeks 7-8, students review relevant literature on quartz sand textures and related depositional environments. They complete jigsaw activities to calibrate observation criteria and to develop “local” expertise, then rotate through using the SEM to determine depositional environment. During weeks 12-13, students use ice-rafted debris literature to analyze quartz sand grains from ODP sediment cores to determine climate-related, ice-rafting mechanisms for transport and deposition of sands to the ocean floor. For week 14, the class revisits the campus sand and uses the EDS and SEM to determine its provenance and depositional environment.

The project was piloted in fall, 2016 and spring, 2017 and pre- and post-assessments have been used to revise the course materials and project delivery. Assessment of learning and student attitudes is being conducted for fall of 2017 and spring of 2018. As part of the dissemination of this NSF-sponsored project, the sands are available as Gigapan macro images and the course materials are available through Earth Educator’s Rendezvous 2017 website.