TEACHING GEOSCIENCE IN A CHANGING CLIMATE: IT'S HARD TO TEACH STUDENTS WHO AREN'T IN YOUR CLASS

Societal views impact curriculum changes at all levels, and changes in K-12 curriculum can affect career choices. World events such as a pandemic, the price of petroleum products, and climate change also affect career choices. This presentation identifies challenges facing geoscience education and documents problems that indicate a need for changes in geoscience pedagogy. Baylor University (BU) is addressing these challenges using informational recruitment strategies and curriculum changes. Geoscience classes are not required in many core curricula and geoscience is not on everyone’s career radar like doctor, lawyer, or merchant chief (business). Therefore, there is a need to inform students about geoscience outside the classroom to encourage them to opt into a class. Examples of recruitment strategies include targeting undecided freshmen, working with admission and advising departments on talking points, and partnering with community colleges and K-12 teachers. Although partnering with K-12 teachers has low direct returns (students enrolling at BU), it is an important long-term strategy that should benefit the larger geoscience community. The final strategy was changing the geoscience curriculum to better represent geoscience subdisciplines and that apply to a growing variety of careers. The new curriculum should also allow enrolled students who experience geoscience to change their major with fewer delays in graduation schedules.