GEOCONNECTIONS IN THE FIELD (Invited Presentation)

Culturally relevant education has positive impacts for diverse students. Geoconnections, direct connections between geologic concepts and processes and individual’s cultures, can be used to motivate students to learn how geoscience influences their daily lives and inspire them to pursue geoscience careers. For this project, an Indigenous research framework was used to design and implement a field experience focused on teaching geochronologic concepts and processes. The field activities are designed so that students are able to bring their own geoconnections to the shared learning experience. There are multiple ways that Indigenous values are implemented into these Indigenized field experiences, but two main features of the design will be discussed in detail: 1. Holistic integration of multiple ways of knowing STEM and 2. Intentional development of relational accountability. Preliminary results from the project evaluation will be shared.