AN INTRODUCTORY-LEVEL PLANETARY GEOLOGY COURSE AS A RECRUITMENT PATHWAY INTO THE GEOLOGY MAJOR (Invited Presentation)

Experiences in introductory courses, fieldwork, and interest are major contributors in students’ decisions to become geology majors (Stokes et al., 2015; Sexton et al., 2018). Introductory physical and historical geology capture the attention of students who traditionally gravitate towards the geology major as they typically portray the conventional roles and career pathways of geology majors. These courses tend to host freshman and a large fraction of students with undeclared majors (Hoisch and Bowie, 2010). Thus, these courses are important recruitment tools but maintain the low-diversity status quo of the geosciences. Core curriculum then misses an opportunity to capture the attention of students who would not typically declare geology majors, even if they would excel in the program. Introductory level planetary geology courses represent opportunities to intercede in this filtering process and recruit nontraditional geology majors- students with insecurities around physics and chemistry (‘roadblock’ courses of the geology major), students with physical disabilities, those belonging to marginalized communities, women, and those not seeking outdoor careers.

We explore examples of how curriculum in one introductory planetary geology course attempts recruitment of nontraditional geology majors. For example, we allow students to take their own images with a handheld VIS-NIR camera, interpret their own absorption features, and share their image and data interpretations. We discuss the history of recent planetary exploration, which has more relatable examples of contributions from members of marginalized communities. Our students learn to produce basic planetary maps of various landforms and use Google Earth to explore Earth Analogues to these features. Map production provides an opportunity for students to feel ownership of their work, while showing alternative interpretations of professionally mapped planetary regions builds comfortability in risk taking. These experiences result in Planetary geology meeting the requirements of many universities’ classification as a core, introductory course and could be an underutilized resource in recruitment.