COAL—THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF A FOSSIL FUEL AND ITS FUNCTION IN A CHANGING CLIMATE: AN INQUIRY-BASED LABORATORY

Many students in introductory geoscience courses start their classes not knowing that coal is a sedimentary rock. They also may be unaware that coal is a carbon sink with implications for climate change. In this inquiry-based lab, students explore coal, its geologic origins, the relation of coal to geologic time, the role of a fossil coal plant, Glossopteris, in discovering continental drift and plate tectonics, and the consequences of burning coal for climate change through one of two writing activities. Coal is contextualized for the students through a virtual field trip to Joggins Fossil Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where a Carboniferous coal forest is captured in the strata. Following is an activity where students plot the distribution of Glossopteris fossil finds on a world map and develop hypotheses about how the now disparate plant distributions could have aligned in the geologic past. Students test their ideas by arranging the fossil plant finds and the continents to make sense of the data. The process leads to a discussion of how scientists discovered continental drift and plate tectonics.

The lab concludes with a writing assignment in which the students develop a policy brief based on a scenario or a narrative account of coal and its role in global climate change, answering guiding questions. In the policy brief option, students write the brief as a geoscientist to advise a new member of the House of Representatives appointed to the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

One primary outcome of this lab is for students to work with concepts surrounding the nature of science and socioscientific issues by bringing geology “alive.” This active learning experience weaves together theory and practice to develop a narrative of coal through the geologic record, integrating biology, geology, climatology, and geologic time.

The laboratory is part of a toolbox developed for geoscience instructors and their students, piloted through my doctoral study, a case study with a mixed methods design. The lab has been designed and improved through participant feedback, colleague review, and teaching demonstrations. Refinement of the exercise is ongoing.