ENGAGING DIVERSE STUDENT GROUPS WITH CRITICAL CLIMATE CONCEPTS THROUGH FIELD-BASED EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING: VISUALIZAING THE CURRENT CLIMATE CRISIS THROUGH A MIOCENE WINDOW

Field-based experiential learning approaches play a vital role in geoscience education, particularly related to climate change. The current drastic pace of the changing climate and its unmatched consequences is unprecedented in human history and was rarely documented throughout Earth history. The 16-million-year-old, annually-resolved Clarkia Miocene lacustrine deposit in Idaho is uniquely suited for illustrating a number of critical climate change concepts, such as forcing, rate, and tipping points of abrupt carbon disturbance. The formation and evolution of the world-renowned fossil site were closely associated with the Columbia River Basalt volcanic activities that emitted large amount of greenhouse gases, estimated three times of the total anthropogenic emission since the Industrial Revolution. The middle Miocene atmospheric CO₂ concentrations were recently estimated to be 500 – 550 ppm, the level that the human society is projected to reach in the coming decades. The diverse and exquisite plant fossils and associated terrestrial biota make it an attractive analogue to visualize the impact of the near-future warming and post-tipping point environmental changes. Based upon clear learning objectives, we deliberately built in activities for students to ask and address critical questions that are relevant to the current climate crisis.

Due to the global nature of climate change with differential local impacts, multi-disciplinary academic characteristics, and cross-cultural components, it has the potential to generate the interest for diverse student groups, especially women-identified and international students who are disproportionally underrepresented but more affected by the climate changes. Engaged with concurrent research programs and through the practice of the past decay, we found that the field-based, real-world experience enhances diverse students’ learning in questioning, reflecting, and applicating their classroom knowledge and effectively supports their on-campus involvement in climate change and sustainability, leading to the change of their long-term career paths and life-long active engagements in the rapidly changing world.