Student Response to Quantitative Aspects of Instruction in an Introductory Geology Course

Abstract

Because most universities and colleges require all students to take a laboratory science course, many geology classes are composed of large sections of nonscience majors. Pedagogic strategies based on small classes of highly motivated students are not effective in this application. It is particularly difficult to convey to these students the quantitative and discovery aspects of science and to demonstrate the importance of a basic knowledge of science and its methods to them as nonscientists. Student responses to quantitative initiatives taken in a large, introductory class of nonscience majors at Baylor University indicate that an overwhelming number of such students can be convinced of the importance of geological processes to their lives and that a majority of them can be interested in the application of elementary mathematics to the earth sciences if the application has a profound result with which they can identify. Hands-on, discovery-type, field exercises in which small laboratory sections acquire, process, and interpret geophysical data are effective in generating interest in the scientific process. Introductory courses that explore a relatively narrow breadth of material in some depth offer opportunities for discovery-based learning not available to the typical introductory survey course, which usually covers a wide breadth of material in very little depth.