SEDucate: Sedimentary Log Exercises for an Active Learning Environment

Abstract

Active learning in education has been shown to improve a students’ learning experience in higher education by focusing on a student-centered learning environment. However, development of realistic activities that replicate the complexity of real-world examples without being too complex for the novice learner is often challenging. Here we present SEDucate, a GIS plugin to build realistic active-learning exercises in sedimentology course curriculums by creating unique sedimentary logs for a tailored assessment based on modern sedimentary environments. The automated creation of simple sedimentary logs for a variety of different depositional environments can be implemented in a wide range of exercises and assessments as either individual or group-based work. SEDucate allows for the teaching on the characterization of sedimentary logs, interpretation of paleogeographic environments and the lateral variation observed in modern sedimentary environments.