PLATE TECTONICS BASICS 3: METAMORPHISM AND PLATE TECTONICS, A NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO FOR USE IN THE UNDERGRADUATE CLASSROOM

As part of an ongoing project to teach plate tectonic basic concepts to upper and lower division undergraduate students, a hybrid video-animation exploring the relationship between metamorphism and plate tectonics was created and will soon be assessed in the classroom. A review of the effectiveness of animations in education demonstrated that animations are more effective than static pictures (Ploetzner, Berney, & Bétrancourt, 2020, J Comput Assist Learn.). With this in mind, we are making and will use the new video “Plate Tectonic Basics 3: Metamorphism and Plate Tectonics” to better understand best practices for making and using visualizations in the classroom. The draft video provides an abbreviated history of metamorphism and explains the relationship between metamorphism and plate tectonics. This draft video is intended for an upper division audience and is best used as a supplementary tool in the classroom, but incorporates a whimsical design to better hold the attention of students. We will show the upper division draft video and invite comments on content and presentation. These will be used to finalize the video, which will be tested in the classroom and then be adapted for lower division audiences by surveying Introductory Geology textbooks, as we did for Plate Tectonic Basics 2: Continental Rifts, New Oceans, and Passive Continental Margins (Willis et al. 2021 Geosciences). We specifically want to know how much information is too much for the intended audience and are there significant improvements in learning outcomes by adding video/animation to the curriculum. We seek feedback from the community on the accuracy of the draft video scientific content as well as individuals that might be interested in assessing the video in their classes.