Geoscience Education

During lunch I read an interesting article in a recent issue of EOS, the newsletter of the American Geophysical Union. This particular article was written by several geoscience education researchers and psychologists and talked about how geoscientists view the world differently than most people, and how we can train new students to think this way. Basically, the article identified several key concepts that geoscientists implicitly understand:

1. The Long View - Geoscientists think about the Earth in terms of millions and billions of years. The majority of individuals never have to think about time in this way, since our active lifespans are measured in tens of years. This kind of thinking relies on things like exponential numbers and proportional reasoning. I honestly admit, I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of a billion years.
   
2. The Complex Systems Approach - Take a look at a typical diagram of the water cycle, and you'll get an idea of what this means. And that is a simple example!
3. Professional View - This is basically the distinction between how I experience a place like the Grand Canyon now compared to how I experienced it as a kid. Then, it was just this really neat place with tough hikes. Now, when I look at the Grand Canyon, I see billions of years of Earth history, the entire evolutionary history of Life on Earth, and the erosional power of water. I feel that in some part I "understand" why the Grand Canyon exists, even though I don't know all the particulars.
4. Spatial Thinking - This is the ability to read and understand maps and to be able to mentally manipulate objects in three dimension. It involves understanding the orientation of rock layers underground and visualizing geologic structures like faults and folds.

Unfortunately, many students have difficulty in these concepts, mainly because they aren't stressed in traditional science education. Luckily, the article also has some suggestions on ways to integrate these concepts:

1. Use a Narrative Approach - By teaching or explaining things sequentially, the students' minds can better understand the Long View of things. This is in contrast with the typical way of teaching timescales simply by dates and numbers on which events are attached (think of a typical history lesson). Instead, teach the events first and add the timescale later. I like the idea of using a reverse timescale. Begin with the modern day and work backwards, explaining how things got the way they are.
2. Teach the Feedback Loop Concept - This is almost never taught in schools. I don't ever remember hearing the term "feedback loop" until college, but it is a very important concept. But this is one of those ideas that opens up the world for students and becomes the basis for understanding Complex Systems.
3. Fieldwork - Understandably, this is where geoscientists learn their Professional Vision. By making disparate observations about the world around them and combining them into a single worldview. But teaching this to students involves a two-prong approach. First, there must be mentoring. If you just let students out in the field without providing instructional support, they won't make much progress. They need to make their own hypothesis, but then they need advice and suggestions in order to refine them. Second, the students should make a map. This helps them learn to look at the real world and abstract the geology from it.
4. Practice Spatial Skills - This is another thing I never learned in school. Everything I learned dealt with processing numbers, not 3D objects. One good and practical way to rectify this is to have students read and annotate maps. Another is to build and interpret 3D models. I think I learned to be really good at this by doing lots of visual puzzles as a child. Also, I had a penchant for creating maps. When everybody else in kindergarten were painting houses and flowers, I was painting a treasure map!
   

I think there are ways to incorporate these things all the way to kindergarten. But for me, these ideas will help me if I ever need to teach another Introduction to Geology class in the future.