HOUGHTON, MI-Geoscientists at Michigan Tech are using the unique features of Utah's National Parks to build a virtual course on CD-ROM and video to help teachers understand earth science mysteries and problems.
"We selected the parks of Utah as the focus of our educational modules because of their exceptional geologic exposures," says Dr. Jackie Huntoon of MTU's Department of Geological Engineering and Sciences. "But you won't have to go to Utah to benefit from this course, because the course is portable and the problems addressed in the program can be found in any part of the country."
Huntoon and colleague Dr. Gregg Bluth are heading a multi-talented team of professionals and undergraduates that hopes to complete a 15-module multimedia teaching laboratory in three years. Their work is being supported by a $428,000 grant from the National Sciences Foundation (NSF) and smaller grants from the Directorate of Geosciences and the Michigan Space Grant program.
"We got the idea for this project because of a lack of geoscience teachers at the K-12 level and the problems that stem from that condition," says Huntoon. "What generally happens is that a student takes a series of courses designed to build knowledge progressively. But even if he takes all the courses in the series, he ends up with a compartmentalized view of the subject and related problems, and doesn't know how it all meshes together. We wanted to correct that problem."
She says Michigan Tech's virtual course will provide hands-on exercises that can be performed anywhere and are intended to give users experience analyzing geologic processes and their products. A course kit will contain extensive lesson plans, key rock samples, relevant geologic and topographic maps, references from the technical and popular literature, and course evaluation materials. A video will provide in-depth information about the remote field sites and techniques used by students and researchers in the field to solve problems.
The basics of the course are taken from a summer field institute taught by Bluth and Huntoon in Utah each summer.
"Our summer program has been well received by both the teachers and undergraduates who have participated," says Bluth. "To put this course on CD-ROM is really an idea that sprang from Jackie's long-term research in Utah. Students have told us they've learned more in the summer institute than in all the other geology course work they've taken during their undergraduate careers."
"Working in the field is the creative part of science," adds Huntoon. "It's where you have a chance to create hypotheses and follow them up on site." Having undergraduates participate in the summer institute is a new approach.
"Aiming a field course toward beginning students is unique," explains Bluth. "As an undergrad, you usually do your field work last and that's when you have some of your best experiences and make some great friends--and then you graduate and may not ever see these people again.
"By reversing this order you make good friends early in your undergraduate career and you stay together until graduation three or four years later. This gives students more confidence early in their careers and greatly helps open up classroom discussions."
"What we're really trying to do is change the whole format of education," says Huntoon. "We want to teach students to question and think using the Socratic method. Most educators seem to think that inquiry-based learning is much more effective than memorization. But it's hard to change from the lecture-based format to one that focuses on the process used to get to the answer or solve the problem. We feel that if we can get teachers to incorporate these course ideas into their own programs, it will facilitate the implementation of this new process.
"When you're faced with a situation where you have to think a problem through and evaluate each of your assumptions because the parameters are such that no one knows for sure what the correct answer is--that's how you develop new knowledge."
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For more information, contact Jackie Huntoon at 906-487-2412 or email jeh@mtu.edu; or Gregg Bluth at 906-487-3554 or email gbluth@mtu.edu.
04/10/00-MTN272