MEANINGFUL ALTERNATIVES TO HANDS-ON PETROLOGY PROJECTS USING WIKIPEDIA: A SUCCESS STORY FROM ONLINE TEACHING DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

In the spring semester of 2021, Appalachian State University’s advanced undergraduate Petrology & Petrography class was fully online due to a lack of laboratory spaces that complied with the University’s rules on social distancing. There was no way to do traditional hands-on research projects, but students still needed research and writing experience to comply with curriculum assessment guidelines. Instead, students created Wikipedia pages on an igneous or metamorphic rock unit in the United States. Students were given a choice of rock units that were previously vetted by the instructor (to ensure that the unit had a sufficient number of references, but not so many as to be overwhelming). Students had to learn about Creative Commons licensing, image copyrights, how to write for a non-science audience, how to code using the specialized Wikipedia editing syntax, and how to email authors asking for access to unpublished photos so they could be used in a Wikipedia page and therefore comply with copyright law.

Students absolutely loved this project, noting that it allowed them to actually use what they had learned in their previous research methods class, and said that it was especially rewarding because it would reach people outside of academia. Many students mentioned how quickly the authors who had studied the rock units responded to them with information, photos and (in some cases) actual packages of rocks so students could photograph them on their own, and how they were no longer intimidated when contacting established scientists. Instructors of our program’s senior capstone course also noted that the Wikipedia project had a marked impact on students’ development as science communicators.

Despite the overwhelmingly positive student feedback about the project, Wikipedia projects eventually become the victims of their own success, as there are limited rock units appropriate for undergraduate petrology students doing semester-long projects. Furthermore, once a rock unit is on the Wikipedia server, it is on there forever, so instructors can’t reuse rock assignments and will constantly have to look for new rock units, which is an enormous amount of work. While online Petrology classes are not ideal, Wikipedia projects can help make them meaningful and enjoyable for students.