USING VISUAL MEDIA TO ENGAGE HIGH SCHOOLERS IN EARTH SCIENCES

Within the next decade, there will be a shortage of geology graduates in the United States, though the job market for geoscientists will increase substantially. Only a few states require geology as a science course in high school, when many students begin seriously considering their college degree paths. Students are not presented with enough information in school to determine whether or not their academic and career calling lies in the geosciences. Geoscience is a major that is often “discovered” during a student’s first or second year of college, rather than knowing it was a path from the start. This has the potential to limit many students’ abilities to change to the geosciences, if they have already made significant progress towards another major.

In an effort to create interest for the geosciences earlier in students’ educational path, we have designed a number of educational posters that communicate topics of Earth history and fossils, topics found in a traditional historical geology course. These posters have been designed to attract student interest, through vivid colors, shapes, and short, simple explanations of major events in our shared history (e.g., The Great Oxygenation Event, The Iron Catastrophe, The Cambrian Explosion). The posters will be printed and distributed broadly to interested high schools. Future work will include asking high school teachers who receive the posters to complete surveys about how the posters are allowing students to think about Earth sciences differently. This presentation is a visual one, where we showcase a selection of these educational posters.