GEOSCIENCE VERSUS ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE: 9TH GRADERS’ DIFFERING PERCEPTIONS OF TWO CLOSELY RELATED DISCIPLINES

Geoscience is plagued with difficulties in recruiting majors, a challenge often linked to lack of exposure to geoscience at the K–12 level. However, the implementation of NGSS has led to more geoscience content at this level, even if not labelled as such.

We worked with a 9^th grade Integrated Science class at a STEM high school to implement NGSS-compliant “project-based learning” modules that emphasized geoscience. We surveyed students before the implementation of the content (n=82) and afterward (n=79). While we did not define “geoscience” differently from “environmental science” during the semester, we treated the two separately in our polls to try to parse students’ perceptions of them as desirable career opportunities.

Our students reported more prior exposure to both geoscience and environmental science than to other science disciplines (biology, chemistry, physics), although few of our 9^th graders were interested in majoring in either. After a semester of geoscience exposure, fewer students reported prior exposure to environmental science, perhaps reflecting a growing perception of differences between the two subjects.

At the beginning of the semester of geoscience-based curriculum, most students did not imagine careers in either geosciences or environmental sciences as personally fulfilling. End-semester, some had changed their minds about environmental science, but even more shifted to a negative opinion of geoscience. In both surveys, students identified geoscience as being the more difficult major and identified geoscience as a less prestigious field.

We had hypothesized that differences in attitudes towards the two disciplines might be influenced by perceptions that geoscience aligns with pollution-causing resource extraction, while environmental science is more obviously focused on solving societal problems. This hypothesis was falsified, as the students identified environmental science as an occupation that causes pollution more often than geosciences in both polls.

Our findings in this ongoing study point to confusion regarding these fields. Because Environmental Science can be seen as a subdiscipline of Geoscience, our scientific community may need to focus on more fully integrating it within the broader context of geoscience both in K-12 curriculum and in public perception.