INCREASING THE LEVEL OF INQUIRY LABORATORY ACTIVITIES FOR INTRODUCTORY GEOLOGY COURSES

Inquiry-based laboratory activities in undergraduate introductory geoscience courses are important opportunities to engage students in face-to-face and online environments. Often, laboratory activities are presented as a series of instructions and questions in a "cookbook" format that guide students to the right answer, but do not engage their curiosity or pursuit of scientific inquiry. Previous research has shown that inquiry lab activities enhance undergraduate student learning and can be implemented by teaching assistants (TAs) with minimal training (1). While the majority of activities in published lab manuals are situated with low levels of inquiry, higher level inquiry-based lessons are possible in introductory geology laboratory activities (2). Here, we compare the inquiry levels of lab activities used in geology courses at multiple institutions with newly developed inquiry lab activities. Traditional labs more frequently use lower levels of inquiry (i.e. confirmation, structured inquiry; 3), but elements of higher levels (e.g. guided inquiry) may also be present. New inquiry lab activities for introductory geology lab courses were developed in summer 2020 as part of a three-day workshop at the Earth Educators’ Rendezvous, for implementation in fall 2020. Lab topics include climate change, plate tectonics, minerals, sedimentary rocks, igneous rocks, metamorphic rocks, a combined rocks lab, fossils and biodiversity through time, geologic time, groundwater. Several lab topics had multiple groups working on them, allowing for the development of labs intended for both the face-to-face and online environments (plate tectonics, minerals, rocks combined, geologic time, and groundwater). The new labs are being pilot tested and undergoing peer review in Fall 2020 before being shared online on the Teach the Earth collection. Future work will investigate the impacts of inquiry-based labs, including on TA beliefs, student learning and student interest. (1) Ryker & McConnell, 2014; (2) Ryker & McConnell, 2017; (3) Buck et al., 2008.