STUDENT EXPLORATION OF GEOSCIENCE CAREERS THROUGH CHALLENGE-BASED FIELD LEARNING IN GEOFORCE AND STEMFORCE 12TH GRADE SUMMER ACADEMIES

Despite the range of career opportunities for geoscientists, high school students typically have little awareness of the practical and societal implications of the geosciences. GeoFORCE and STEMFORCE are out-of-school time programs in the Jackson School of Geosciences (JSG) at UT Austin that aim to inspire students to pursue geoscience careers. To increase exposure to geoscience disciplines, we implemented a curriculum based on the Legacy Cycle with the 12^th grade students. Student groups chose between challenges related to Central Texas geology designed to simulate realistic tasks professional geoscientists may complete. One challenge tasked students with performing site investigations of locations for a hypothetical high-speed railway for the Texas Department of Transportation. For the second challenge, students created example Snapchat (Snap Inc.) filters for Texas State Parks & Wildlife Department – photo overlays to represent the geology and geologic history of the sites visited during the week. Project deliverables were a poster, 12-minute technical talk and 4-minute general “lightning talk,” each for a specific target audience. Students collected field data, synthesized observations through classroom discussions and hands-on activities and visited JSG labs that demonstrated research related to concepts explored in the field. Educators assessed daily deliverables, which included sketches, measurements and a “geologic time tube” annotated each day with events in geologic history for the sites visited. Group members gave daily lightning talks, which provided opportunities to improve presentation skills and also clarified misconceptions. By the end of the week, students expressed pride in their work and acknowledged gains in learning. Student deliverables were high quality and reflected varying levels of comprehension and application of scientific knowledge towards solving the challenges. The most successful groups incorporated research from external sources and effectively divided responsibilities. We observed benefits of role-playing, in which groups created geologic consulting companies with names, logos and business cards. Students in these groups also embraced their personal strengths and imitated the way geoscience teams work, a primary goal of the Legacy Cycle approach.