HR: 0800h
AN: ED51B-0425    [Abstracts]
TI: Using Mauna Loa Atmospheric CO2 Data in Large General Education Geoscience Courses
AU: * Richardson, R M
EM: rmr@email.arizona.edu
AF: University of Arizona, Department of Geosciences, Tucson, AZ 85721-0077, United States
AU: Kapp, J L
EM: jkapp@email.arizona.edu
AF: University of Arizona, Department of Geosciences, Tucson, AZ 85721-0077, United States
AB: We have been using the Mauna Loa atmospheric CO2 dataset (http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/data/in_situ_co2/monthly_mlo.csv) in a large (up to 300) General Education Geoscience course, primarily in small breakout groups (30 students). The exercise is designed to address quantitative literacy including percentages, slopes and linear trends, issues of data completeness and bias, quality of extrapolations, as well as implications for climate change. We are significantly revising the course, which serves 600 students a semester, with help from a curriculum grant. A major goal is to improve student learning by incorporating inquiry based activities in the large lecture setting. Lectures now incorporate several activities throughout a given class period, in which students are asked to use critical thinking skills such as interpreting patterns in data and graphs, analyzing a scientific hypothesis for its coherence with the scientific method, and answering higher order synthesis questions in both verbal and written form. This differs from our past format where class periods were dominated by lecture, with a single short activity done individually about every other lecture. To test the effectiveness of the new course format we will give students the same atmospheric CO2 exercise in the lecture setting that they were given previously in breakout groups. Students will work in small groups in lecture after receiving a short introduction to the exercise by the instructor. They will plot CO2 concentrations, make extrapolations, and interpret patterns in the data. We will compare scores on the exercise with previous semesters. We expect that students will do better having had more experience with interpreting scientific data and practicing higher order thinking skills. We also expect working in small groups will foster better learning through peer teaching and discussion. We will incorporate responses from students who took part in the exercises from current and previous semesters. We administer a greenhouse effect concept inventory both before and after the CO2 exercise and other in-class greenhouse gas activities, and will present those results as well.
DE: 0810 Post-secondary education
DE: 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design
DE: 0840 Evaluation and assessment
DE: 0850 Geoscience education research
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting