Developing dispositions needed for the geoscience workforce in the undergraduate curriculum: a preliminary study and framework for instructors

Dispositions, such as the desire to learn, work ethic, initiative, and organization, are defined as internal attributes, attitudes, or values that stimulate action. Rather than being intrinsic traits, dispositions can be learned and are considered a dynamic and evolving arrangement of interconnected components. Dispositions are highly desired and valuable to the workforce, playing a critical role in gaining and maintaining employment; they are frequently mentioned in job advertisements for bachelor-level geoscientists. Therefore, it is important to understand where and how geoscience students are developing these dispositions as part of their degree programs. We surveyed faculty in geoscience departments at two institutions, asking them to identify which dispositions they intentionally have students practice in their courses. We collected survey responses for 36 undergraduate geoscience courses at both the introductory and majors levels. Faculty reported providing opportunities for students to develop one or more dispositions in 89% of the courses described. Opportunities to develop collaboration, attention to detail, and organization were most frequently reported by faculty. We conducted follow-up interviews with faculty to better understand the types of activities and strategies being used in geoscience courses to help students develop critical workforce dispositions. Analysis of the interviews led to the development of a framework for categorizing instructor-described strategies in terms of two characteristics: 1) active vs. passive strategies (were students engaged in an activity or passively receiving information); and 2) direct vs. indirect strategies (were students made aware of the dispositions they were developing by having them directly named or discussed). The majority of strategies described by faculty were indirect, meaning that students may not have been aware of, or focused on, the dispositions they were expected to develop. Many described strategies were also passive, meaning that students were not engaged in discussion, reflection, or other activities to help develop a disposition. We provide examples and ideas for instructors interested in helping students develop critical workforce dispositions in their courses.

Scientific modeling and systems thinking (SMST) is central to the geosciences, yet few studies have documented how and to what extent undergraduate geoscience courses emphasize SMST, as well as factors that might help explain or predict these trends. Here, we present research based on data (n = 2056) from the most recent (2016) administration of the National Geoscience Faculty Survey, administered to a national sample of postsecondary geoscience instructors in the United States. We investigated instructor- and course-related variables as they relate to a set of 9 survey items that serve as a composite measure for SMST. Significant variation was observed in reported frequencies of individual SMST practices in undergraduate geoscience courses. The highest levels of reported SMST were associated with faculty from atmospheric and environmental sciences, those who emphasized research-based, student-centered pedagogical practices, those who recently made changes to both course content and teaching methods, and those who reported high levels of engagement in instructional improvement activities (workshops, presentations, seminars). Reported SMST practices were similar for faculty identifying as geoscientists and geoscience education researchers, and both were significantly higher than for teaching-focused faculty who do not conduct research. A linear regression model including variables found to be significant in the analyses was able to predict 17% of the overall variance in reported SMST practices. These findings illustrate the importance of instructors’ disciplinary orientation and active engagement in instructional innovation as related to SMST, and provide important points of impact for enhancing SMST in undergraduate geoscience courses through course design and faculty development. However, the relatively modest predictive power of the regression model indicates there are many other factors influencing SMST that warrant future research.

Ethics education is an increasingly important component of the pre‐professional training of geoscientists. Geoethics encompasses the values and professional standards required of geoscientists to work responsibly in any geoscience profession and in service to society. Funding agencies (e.g., the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health) require training of graduate students in the responsible conduct of research; employers are increasingly expecting their workers to have basic training in ethics; and the public demands the highest standards of ethical conduct by scientists. However, there is currently no formal course of instruction in ethics in the geoscience curriculum, and few faculty members have the experience, resources, and sometimes willingness required to teach ethics as a component of their geoscience courses.

Meeting the targets of the 17 United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires contributions from geoscientists. Like most countries, Kenya is faced with the triple dimensional challenge of balancing economic, social and environmental sustainability. Through implementation of its ‘Vision 2030’ strategy, Kenya aims to transform into a high-functioning, industrialised middle-income country, providing a high quality of life to all its citizens by 2030. The country’s constitution harmonises with Vision 2030 and entitles every Kenyan to a clean and secure environment. This background provides an integrated roadmap entrenched in the SDGs. Kenya has also committed to implementing the African Union Agenda 2063 and the East African Community (EAC) Vision 2050, both aiming to build a more prosperous Africa. Eradicating extreme poverty, waste management, disaster preparedness, ensuring affordable, clean and sustainable energy, improving access to clean water, promoting sustainable consumption and production, environmental sustainability, building resilience to climate change impacts and managing Kenya's natural resources are some of the key elements of these policies. Here, we highlight the importance of geoscience education in accelerating the critical goals of Kenya’s Vision 2030 and the SDGs. We synthesise key policy documents to explore sustainable development priorities at the national and county level in the context of geoscience in Kenya and explore the relevant geoscience training and skills needed to help address these priorities. We demonstrate that geoscience will continue to be instrumental for achievement of the SDGs and overall performance on socio-economic development in Kenya. Baseline assessments of the geoscience courses available, including training and description of modules offered in Kenya's higher institutions, were compiled and analysed. The extent of the existing geoscience workforce and future workforce required to deliver on Kenya's Vision 2030 and the SDGs was identified through online surveys, focus group discussions, and interviews. We mapped the future needs against the training available and existing current workforce capacity to conduct a skills gap analysis. We identify a number of needs, including (1) to embed sustainability concepts into geoscience curriculum; (2) to expand provision of specialist postgraduate courses (e.g. MSc); (3) to strengthen access to field-based training in both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees; (4) to increase the number of trained geoscientists; (5) improved communication between geoscientists and policymakers. We conclude with a roadmap to address these gaps, embedding good practice from the UN Technology Facilitation Mechanism, and include transferable insights for other national settings.

A wave of social activism in recent years has raised the profile of environmental justice, leading to a proliferation of new research and funding, as well as some governmental backlash. The geosciences occupy an interesting place in the landscape of environmental justice, as many geoscience topics have implications for environmental justice, but environmental justice has not typically been included in geoscience curricula. In this paper, we explore the teaching of environmental justice in a geoscience context. We discuss the relevance of environmental justice for geoscience, including the history of the environmental justice movement and what we identify as core competencies that geoscience students need to meaningfully engage with environmental justice. These include knowledge of anthropogenic systems and geologic processes, a broad conception of data literacy, incorporation of ethics, comfort with interdisciplinarity, and the ability to work with nonacademic audiences. We provide curricular examples of incorporating environmental justice into geoscience courses, including single-day interventions, a unit on geomorphology and environmental justice, a student-developed final project considering subsidence in Mexico City from an environmental justice lens, and a semester-length course. These examples emphasize the multifaceted connections between geoscience topics and human action. As geoscientists continue to consider the role of environmental justice in the discipline, we urge instructors to focus on the skills and knowledge that students need, to develop open-access teaching resources to be shared among instructors, and to foster interdisciplinary and nonacademic connections.

This article describes the results of a proof of concept project, Data Sets for Inquiry in Geoscience (DIGS), funded by the National Science Foundation. The three goals of the project were to: 1) study the impacts on student learning of web-based supplementary curriculum modules in which secondary students used real geoscience datasets, visualisations, and software tools to conduct investigations within two fundamental topics of study, climate change and plate boundaries; 2) develop designs and prototypes of technology-based performance assessments to provide evidence of students' geoscientific knowledge and inquiry skills; 3) develop extension scenarios to overview examples of curriculum modules and performance assessments that could be developed for other Earth Science standards and curriculum topics. The article describes the features of the climate module curricular activities and performance assessments that can serve as models for additional topics. The project promoted and tested knowledge and inquiry strategies not typically addressed in geoscience curricula and assessments.

Research and technology have played important strategic roles in driving the enhancement of teaching in higher education. Given their complementary nature, it is beneficial to identify and develop potential synergies between research-enhanced and technology-enhanced education. As a flexible and versatile opinion-gathering platform, electronic feedback may play a more central role in university teaching by building close links between lectures and assessments in a module. This chapter shows how electronic feedback can be used as an effective teaching tool in technology- and research-enhanced education (TREE), particularly in the context of university courses in geosciences. More specifically, this chapter will discuss how electronic feedback may be used beyond its conventional association with formative assessments and may act as a two-way link between students and their lecturers. The discussion will also show how electronic feedback may be applied to enhance teaching efficiency and achieve pedagogical objectives in research-enhanced teaching.

At present, the lack of short courses in geosciences (for example, the BTS in Nancy and a few professional degree courses) has led to the introduction of new courses, such as the “Diplome de Technicien Superieur Professionnel en Geologie” (Professional technician in geology) at Lasalle Beauvais with the aim of developing new skills for assistants and supervisors in geology.

We present the case for introductory geoscience courses as model venues for increasing the quantitativeliteracy (QL) of large numbers of the college-educated population. The geosciences provide meaningfulcontext for a number of fundamental mathematical concepts that are revisited several times in a single course.Using some best practices from the mathematics education community surrounding problem solving,calculus reform, pre-college mathematics and five geoscience/math workshops, geoscience and mathematicsfaculty have identified five pedagogical ideas to increase the QL of the students who populate introductorygeoscience courses. These five ideas include techniques such as: place mathematical concepts in context, usemultiple representations, use technology appropriately, work in groups, and do multiple-day, in-depthproblems that place quantitative skills in multiple contexts. We discuss the pedagogical underpinnings of thesefive ideas and illustrate some ways that the geosciences represent ideal places to use these techniques.However, the inclusion of QL in introductory courses is often met with resistance at all levels. Faculty whowish to include quantitative content must use creative means to break down barriers of public perception ofgeoscience as qualitative, administrative worry that enrollments will drop and faculty resistance to change.Novel ways to infuse QL into geoscience classrooms include use of web-based resources, shadow courses,setting clear expectations, and promoting quantitative geoscience to the general public. In order to helpfaculty increase the QL of geoscience students, a community-built faculty-centered web resource (TeachingQuantitative Skills in the Geosciences) houses multiple examples that implement the five best practices of QLthroughout the geoscience curriculum. We direct faculty to three portions of the web resource: TeachingQuantitative Literacy, QL activities, and the 2006 workshop website - Infusing Quantitative Literacy intoIntroductory Geoscience Courses. These portions of the website are designed to give geoscience faculty theresources they need to infuse quantitative content into their entry-level courses, thereby building the QL ofthe students who enroll. The infusion of QL in the introductory geoscience classroom allows faculty torealistically represent the quantitative nature of the science to the students who may need it most. Ultimately,the inclusion of pedagogically sound quantitative activities and exercises will serve to increase QL of oureducated citizenry.

There is a growing need for public understanding about groundwater resources. Knowing what groundwater and aquifers are is fundamental to understanding more complex issues such as groundwater quality and availability. However, groundwater and related concepts are among the topics that instructors most struggle to teach. Although constructivist theories suggest that students’ preconceptions or misconceptions can be used as teaching tools, the question about exactly how remains. A resource perspective on this question states the first step involves understanding students’ preconceptions. To gain a deeper understanding of college students’ pre-instructional mental models about groundwater residence, 215 students enrolled in introductory-level environmental geoscience courses taught at two large US state universities were surveyed. An open-ended questionnaire asked participants to draw and label a concept sketch. Follow-up interviews asked participants to elaborate upon their concept sketches. Eight categories of mental models emerged from the analysis of the collected data. These results were interpreted through the lens of cognitive schema theory, which generated to four patterns of mental models. These patterns emphasize key aspects of students’ pre-instructional mental models about groundwater residence. Instructors can use this information to design instructional activities about groundwater and aquifers using a resource perspective.

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As technology advances in the industries which graduating engineers wish to enter, technology in the undergraduate curriculum must also advance. A course in computational fluid dynamics was recently developed which meets the challenge of bringing advanced topics to undergraduate students. This paper addresses techniques used to enable undergraduates to enter the work force with the ability to solve and physically understand fluid dynamics problems requiring commercially available computational fluid dynamics codes and related software. Student projects involving grid generation, the solution to two-dimensional and three-dimensional problems, and the solution to multi-dimensional species flow problems are presented. Additionally, final term projects obtained from the students' cooperative employers are discussed. Introduction Advances in engineering technology has led to the development of commercially available software packages which allow for the solution of complicated engineering problems. Graduating engineers must be prepared to successfully use these tools upon entering the work force. A fundamental understanding of the mathematics, physics, and numerical considerations behind the development of these codes is often only possible when the user pursues advanced engineering degrees beyond the baccalaureate level. Undergraduate students often use software packages blindly assuming the computer will never produce incorrect solutions. Students need to understand the phenomenon modeled by the software packages and to have expectations of the problem solutions in order to detect unrealistic and incorrect results sometimes produced by inexperienced software users. Educators must also enable the students to develop a fundamental understanding of the behavior of the equations solved by the software packages without going into the details required in most graduate classes. The students must also develop the ability to run the necessary software packages including any required preprocessing and post processing software. These abilities must be developed to some degree in a single course since most undergraduate engineering curricula have few free electives. Bringing advanced topics into the undergraduate curricula has been pursued at other institutions in an effort to enable students to work in areas which, in the past, were typically reserved for individuals with advanced degrees. Some topics are reserved for graduate work simply because of the lack of time in the undergraduate curricula. Examples of these programs may be found in Goddard (1995) and Wendlandt and Harrison (1995).

Undergraduate students in an introductory-level geoscience course successfully designed and conducted a science badge day for the Junior Girl Scouts. With national concerns that girls turn away from science at a young age, a service-learning project was incorporated into a college course with the end result providing a group of girls a positive and fun science-learning experience. A number of science and technology badges exist for the Girl Scouts, yet not many of these badges have been completed because of a lack of confidence the troop leaders have in teaching science and a paucity of scheduled science events for the leaders to take their girls. Junior Girl Scout troops were invited to the Pennsylvania State University Delaware County campus to complete a series of hands-on dinosaur science activities that allowed them to earn the Science in Everyday Life badge. At the conclusion of the badge event, the girls reported a greater interest in science, a desire to learn more science, and a desire to complete additional science-related Girl Scout badges.

<div> <p>Girls into Geoscience (GiG) is an initiative aiming to empower and encourage girls to consider degrees and careers in the Geosciences. Currently, < 40 % of places on Geoscience courses in the UK are taken up by girls, and this is something we are actively and successfully addressing. Our founding GiG event runs for 2 days and is primarily aimed at year 12 female students who are thinking about applying for university. June 2014 saw the first Girls into Geoscience day, and since then nearly 400 girls have attended from across the UK.  On day one we offer a fieldtrip, whilst day two consists of a day of talks and workshops, with topics from across the geosciences.  The aim of the talks is to showcase the range of Geoscience career pathways that are possible across industry and academia, and provide role models for the girls. Speakers span the career spectrum from early career to experienced scientists, and they talk about their unique journey to becoming Earth Scientists, as well as informing the students about different disciplines and roles possible after graduation. In the afternoon, an insight into the university experience is given through hands-on workshops across a range of geoscience topics, giving the attendees the opportunity to focus on their interests or try something new. Data collected from attendees has shown real impact. For example, in 2016, 75% of attendees at the end of the event said that they were more likely to consider studying geology, whilst 9% were already planning on doing so.  A year later these students were about to start university courses, and 78% of respondents (55% response rate) were off to study geoscience or related courses at university. While in 2017, 70% of the students said they were more likely to do geology following GiG, and 63% (39% response rate) went on to do geoscience related course in 2018, and in 2018 84% said they were more likely to study geology following GiG, and 85% (38% response rate) were off to do geoscience related courses in 2019. Significantly, 100% of all those responding 1 year later said they would recommend attending GiG to those interested in the Geosciences. </p> </div><div> <p>Since we started GiG we have seen many changes and positive steps in the recruitment, recognition and retention of women in STEM but there is still work to do nationally and internationally.  We have supported the development of new initiatives and GiG Ireland has now been running for 3 years, GiG Scotland held their inaugural event in Glasgow in August 2019, and GiG Wales is planned for 2020.  We have supported the development of new initiatives, and GiG Ireland has now been running for 3 years, GiG Scotland held their inaugural event in Glasgow in August 2019, and GiG Wales is planned for 2020.  We are also working with other UK universities to develop Junior GiG for younger students with the aim of inspiring even younger students, the University of Leicester held the first GiGjr in 2019.  We are also working with other UK universities to develop Junior GiG for younger students with the aim of inspiring even younger students. The University of Leicester held the first GiGjr event in 2019.  GiG continues to grow, we hope to continue this growth, and run this initiative until it is no longer needed! </p> </div>

Theoretically and anecdotally, bridging programs that facilitate the transition from high school to college should increase the recruitment and retention of students into universities. Ideally, this type of program is deemed ‘effective’ if the program results in an increased number of the target population actually receiving a college degree. Thus, unless short-term indicators of success can be identified and measured, the program cannot be evaluated until five or more years have passed.The Rural Alaska Honors Institute (RAHI) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is a bridging program aimed at preparing rural Alaska high school juniors and seniors for college. A geoscience course was recently added to the program in an effort to recruit Alaska Native students into geoscience careers. Using the concept of a geoscience career ‘pipeline,’ we developed a survey to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in recruiting potential geoscience majors. By using rigorous survey construction and testing methodology, we developed a survey that we are confident provides a short-term measure of the course's effectiveness in promoting the acquisition of the attitudes and knowledge associated with retention in a geoscience career pipeline. Keys to developing an effective survey were: identification of the model being tested; cognitive testing of survey questions; and identification of a control group. Results of the survey suggest that the RAHI geoscience course is an effective means of recruiting potential geoscientists.