ENGAGING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN A CONVERSATION ABOUT UNDERREPRESENTATION IN THE GEOSCIENCES THROUGH A CONTEMPORARY AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

After the social and civil unresting initiated in the summer of 2020, many geoscience programs incorporated elements of antiracism, among other social aspects, into their curricula as a response to the national civil movement. At James Madison University, the course History and Philosophy in the Geosciences (GEOL-167), traditionally introduces classical points of view related to early ideas and concepts used in the development discipline. During FA21, we redesign the course to explore contemporary examples (using peer-reviewed work) that highlight societal issues reflected in the geosciences as an additional layer to the classical view to describe a current viewpoint of the philosophy of geosciences. Our syllabus was organized into 3 major blocks: ¹History of the Geosciences, ²Geosciences within the Societal Context, and ³Underrepresentation in the Geosciences. Class goals included the identification and description of cultural aspects within the geosciences and how they define current focus and perspectives in the discipline among others. The class was composed of 14 undergraduate students from Earth Science, Physics, Communication Sciences, Statistics, Computer Science, and one undeclared major. Students were assigned literature to review one week in advance and session discussions were developed using the Socratic seminar method. Weekly assignments included the formulation of discussion questions and the construction of reflections based on reading and group discussions, in addition to the completion of 3 comprehensive projects over the semester. During this talk we will share our experience in the form of student work, challenges encountered while teaching this course, designing and organization rationale, and future work.