Chen Zhu Geological Sciences and School of Public and Environmental Affairs Brooke A. Treadwell

1. The Case Study Method for the Assessment of Student Learning: Using Scientific Reasoning and Deep Geological Time to Predict Future Environmental Impacts Chen Zhu Geological Sciences and School of Public and Environmental Affairs Brooke A. Treadwell Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

2. Acknowledgements • Departmental colleagues, Simon Brassell, Claudia Johnson, Michael Hamburger, Jim Brophy, Bruce Douglas for sharing interests and discussions • Lilly Freshmen Learning Project leaders Joan Middendorf, David Pace, and Simon Brassell and “cohorts” • Collaborators for this research project: George Rehrey and Claudia Johnson

3. The Teaching and Learning Problem • Often, the immensity of deep geological time (DGT) is very difficult for non-science majors to understand and to use when applying it to geological problems • DGT can be both a bottleneck and a threshold concept for many science classes • DGT is important for student success within Geology and other sciences (Hawkins 1978) • Prepare scientifically literate, informed citizens to vote in elections that will impact environmental policy on high-stakes issues such as climate change/the carbon tax and nuclear waste disposal.

4. The 4.6 billion-year history of Earth Dinosaur extinction65 mya

5. We are now in Holocene Epoch (11,500 years before present to the present) • Holocene is an interglacial period • Pleistocene “most recent in Greek” (11,500 - 2.5 million years before present) • Last glacial maximum 25,000 years ago

6. Review of Literature Preconceptions inhibit students from achieving an adequate understanding of DGT • Numerical difficulties: • Millions vs. billions (Trend 2000) • Dinosaurs died before life began (Libarkin 2007) • Confusion about basic science • Lunar phases (Schoon & Boone 1998) • Reasons for seasonal change (DeLaughter & Stein 1998) • Global warming is due to destruction of Ozone layer DeLaughter, J. E. and S. Stein (1998). "Preconceptions about earth science among students in an introductory course." EOS79: 429-432.

7. Review of Literature • Elementary School • Ault, C. R. (1982). "Time in geological explanations as perceived by elementary school students." Journal of Geological Education30: 304-309. • High School • Hidalgo, A. J. and J. Otero (2004). "An analysis of the understanding of geological time by students at secondary and post-secondary level." International Journal of Science Education26(7): 845-857. • Dodick, J. and N. Orion (2003). "Measuring student understanding of geological time." Science Education87(5): 708-731. • College • Libarkin, J. C., J. P. Kurdziel, et al. (2007). "College student conceptions of geological time and the disconnect between ordering and scale." Journal of Geoscience Education55(5): 413-422. • Catley, K. M. and L. R. Novick (2009). "Digging deep: Exploring college students' knowledge of macroevoluntionary time." Journal of Research in Science Teaching46(3): 311-332.

8. Review of Literature – Suggested Learning Activities • Visualize magnitude by analogy or metaphor-based activities • (Pyle 2007). • Equate geologic time to physical distance • (Richardson 2000, Hemler & Repine 2002) • Translate DGT into a familiar time span (one calendar year) • (Everitt, Good & Pankiewicz 1996, Nieto-Obregon 2001). • Create personal metaphor • (Ritger & Cummins 1991). All these activities presuppose that once students compare the geological time scale to a familiar distance, volume, mass or time period, they will be more likely to grasp the brevity of humans’ existence on Earth relative to the enormity of DGT.

9. Geologic Time Metaphors

10. Geologic Time Metaphors

11. Situational Factors • Environmental Geology G171for non-science majors • Possibly a gateway course • 37 undergraduates in 2009 • 73% of students - First college science course • 49% of students - Self reported knowing “almost nothing” about DGT • Only 8% indicated being highly confident in their understanding of DGT

12. Introductory Geology Courses

13. Why is DGT a bottleneck? • Quantitative skills: • Large numbers, abstract numbers • Proportions and scales • Lack of scientific background and literacy • Relation between geological time scale and something real (dinosaurs died a long, long time ago, 65 mya)

14. The Research Questions • Can participation in distance-metaphor building activities help students visualize the immensity of DGT? • Does learning DGT help students acquire better scientific reasoning skills? • To what extent does the case study method enable students to understand and apply the concept of DGT to problem-solving?

15. Background to Project • Decoding Discipline Model and the Freshman Learning Project • Where do most students get stuck? • Pace, D and Middendorf, J. 2004. Decoding the disciplines: Helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New Directions for Teaching and Learning Summer, no. 98. • Pace, D and Middendorf J. 2007. Easing entry into the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning through focused assessments: The decoding the disciplines approach. In To Improve Academy, (Bolton: Anker Publishing).

16. How this study is different • Innovation: (a) a real world environmental problem with the need of understanding geological time scale that students can relate to and engage with; (b) future vs. past; (c) apply/outcome driven • Scaffold learning - based upon Anderson’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives Anderson, Lorin W., David R. Krathwohl, and Benjamin Samuel Bloom. A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing : A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Abridged ed. New York: Longman 2001.

17. Nevada Nevada Test Site Las Vegas Geological Repository for High-level Nuclear Wastes Yucca Mountain

18. Into the realm of geological time scale • July 9, 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia vacated Environmental Protection Agency’s 10,000-year period for compliance • Now to 1 million years or “within the period of geologic stability”

19. In the next million years …

20. All of these orbital changes influence the amount of sunlight hitting the Earth. The recurrence of ice ages is roughly on 100,000 and 40,000 time scales Milankovitchcycle

21. How this study is different • Personal engagement • Nuclear waste example; requires society’s decision and has an outcome students may care about; • Case Study: local coal burning power plant (part of the final exam); • Lab requires students to create a visual product representing geological time and apply it to the nuclear waste and global warming problems; • Authentic Assessment – Students are asked to do the “type of thinking” and tasks that the expert in that field would do. Wiggins, Grant P. 1998. Educative assessment: Designing assessments to inform and improve student performance. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.

22. Lab – Part I Mark the following events on the toilet paper, each sheet = 20 million years

23. Lab – Part II Using the perforations between sheets as a ruler, mark the names of items as listed in the table below. You will have to calculatethe number of sheets required to complete each step in the table below. Each sheet of the paper towel is equal to 10,000 years

24. Follow up Homework • Given your knowledge of the geological time scale and human history, what seems like a reasonable and feasible time period for the nuclear waste to be stored safely at the Yucca Mountain geological repository? Would 10,000 years be enough? 100,000 years? 1,000,000 years? Why? Be sure to support your answer by using geological numbers and the time scale of events that you identified in the lab. This answer should be about 4-5 sentences long.

25. Follow-up Homework Write an essay in which you either agree or disagree with the following statement: “We are in the warm period of the glacial and inter-glacial cycle, and are surely heading toward the next glacial period. Therefore, global warming is a good thing because it will delay the coming of the next ice age.”

26. Class Activities • Pre-course knowledge survey at first class • Lectures and class discussion about DGT • Distance-metaphor building lab • Post lab survey/homework/essay • Post-course knowledge survey at last class • Final take home exam using case study method

27. Evidence of Student Learning • Pre and Post-Knowledge Survey • Post lab survey • Final Exam – Case Study

28. Knowledge Survey • Measure students’ perceptions of their ability to solve problems, not their actual ability. • Nuhfer and Knipp (2003) found that very few students display gross overconfidence when self reporting. They concluded that such “aberrations contributed by occasional individuals never affect a class average in a significant way” (p. 66). • We averaged student scores to draw conclusions about improved DGT understanding and application. Nuhfer, E. and D. Knipp (2003). "The Knowledge Survey: A Tool for All Reasons." To Improve the Academy21: 59-78.

29. Knowledge Survey Selected Questions • Explain the Geological Time Scale & why it is important to Environmental Geology • Describe the age of the earth in geological time and how we know it is an accurate estimation • Estimate the number of years we should guarantee buried high level nuclear waste will be safe at Yucca Mountain. Explain why. • Estimate how far back we need to look into the geological past to determine if human activity is causing climate change. Describe why this is significant. Scale: How confident are you that you could answer this question on a graded test: • 1 – Not confident • 3 – Somewhat confident • 5 – Very confident

30. Pre and Post-Knowledge Survey Results

31. Post Lab Survey

32. Post Lab Survey Results Ratings: 1 = strongly disagree 5 = strongly agree

33. Case Study • You just joined a student environmental group. Write the text of a presentation you will give to IU student government defending the belief that anthropogenic activities are a contributor to global warming, and hence an important reason why IU should retire its coal fired power plant. Your presentation should: • Explain the immensity of geological time, variations in CO2 concentrations and glacial & inter-glacial cycles within the Quaternary • Use scientific reasoning (observations, theory, experiments, evidence & facts) to show that the CO2 increase is likely beyond natural variability • Use graphs to support your argument • Identify 2 other contemporary environmental issues which require an understanding of the geological time scale. Explain how.

34. Case Study Rubric Criteria • Description of the immensity of DGT • Use of DGT to describe the link between the CO2 rise & global warming to human activity • Use of DGT to argue that global warming won't inhibit next ice age • Explanation of how DGT is key to understanding other environmental issues (excluding global warming) Scores • 3 – accurate answer, clear & detailed • 2 – accurate answer, some detail • 1 – vague/unclear/answer indicated misunderstanding

35. Case Study Results

36. Conclusions • Students perceived the distance-metaphor activities as enabling them to visualize the immensity of DGT • Large increase in students’ confidence in their ability to engage in scientific reasoning using DGT • The majority of students demonstrated the ability to use DGT to engage in scientific reasoning • The majority of students applied the concept of DGT to problem-solve within case-study assignments

37. Next Steps Adjustments to the course • This Fall we added an additional metaphor building activity to the lab, asking students to create their own visual depiction of the immensity of DGT, after they have worked in teams using the toilet paper exercise to visualize its immensity. Further Research • Larger sample size • Examine students’ ability to transfer problem solving skills to a different discipline, course, or problem set

38. Thank you

39. Case Study Results

40. Sources • Ault, C. R. (1982). "Time in geological explanations as perceived by elementary school students." Journal of Geological Education30: 304-309. • Catley, K. M. and L. R. Novick (2009). "Digging deep: Exploring college students' knowledge of macroevoluntionary time." Journal of Research in Science Teaching46(3): 311-332. • DeLaughter, J. E. and S. Stein (1998). "Preconceptions about earth science among students in an introductory course." EOS79: 429-432. • Dodick, J. and N. Orion (2003). "Measuring student understanding of geological time." Science Education87(5): 708-731. • Everitt, C. L., S. C. Good, P. R. Pankiewicz (1996). "Conceptualizing the inconceivable by depicting the magnitude of geological time with a yearly planning calendar." Journal of Geoscience Education44: 290-293. • Fink, L. Dee (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass. • Hawkins, D. (1978). "Critical barriers to science learning." Outlook29: 3-23. • Hemler, D. and T. Repine (2002). "Reconstructing the geologic timeline." The Science Teacher69(4): 32-35. • Hidalgo, A. J. and J. Otero (2004). "An analysis of the understanding of geological time by students at secondary and post-secondary level." International Journal of Science Education26(7): 845-857.

41. Sources • Libarkin, J. C., J. P. Kurdziel, et al. (2007). "College student conceptions of geological time and the disconnect between ordering and scale." Journal of Geoscience Education55(5): 413-422. • Nieto-Obregon, J. (2001). "Geologic time scales, maps, and the chronoscalimeter." Journal of Geoscience Education49(1): 25-29. • Novak, J. D. (1988). "Learning science and the science of learning." Studies in Science Education15: 77-101. • Nuhfer, E. and D. Knipp (2003). "The Knowledge Survey: A Tool for All Reasons." To Improve the Academy21: 59-78. • Pace, D and J Middendorf (2004). Decoding the disciplines: Helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New Directions for Teaching and Learning Summer, no. 98. • Pyle, C. (2007). "Teaching the time: Physical geography in four dimensions." Teaching Geography32(3): 121-123. • Richardson, R. M. (2000). "Geologic time (clothes) line." Journal of Geoscience Education48: 584. • Ritger, S. D. and R. H. Cummins (1991). "Using student-created metaphors to comprehend geologic time." Journal of Geological Education39: 9-11. • Schoon, K. J. (1992). "Students' alternative conceptions of Earth and space." Journal of Geological Education40: 209-214. • Schoon, K. J. and W. J. Boone (1998). "Self-efficacy and alternative conceptions of science preservice elementary teachers." Science Education82(5): 553-568. • Trend, R. D. (2000). "Conceptions of geological time among primary teacher trainees, with reference to their engagement with geoscience, history, and science." International Journal of Science Education22(5): 539-555. • Wiggins, Grant P. (1998). Educative assessment: Designing assessments to inform and improve student performance. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass

42. Atmospheric CO2 in the past

43. Yucca Mt. – Potential Repository • Desert climate (170 mm/yr vs. Bloomington ~1200 mm/yr); • On federal land; • Away from large population centers; • Nevada has only two congress men (and two senators); • 30 years study and 30 billion dollars.

44. Infiltration rate • At present, evaporation exceeds precipitation (170 mm/yr) - hypothesis; • Water drips down in tunnel – reality check; • When is the next ice age?

45. Estimated Recharge for Yucca Mountain (Zhu et al. Water Resources Research , 2003) 15±5 mm/yr 5±1 mm/yr U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Next 10 ky 13-64 mm/yr 10 ky - 1 ma