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Exploring Florida River: Transforming Earth Systems Science Labs at FLC

Learn about how a collaborative project on monitoring the Florida River enhanced the Earth Systems Science course at FLC, integrating field trips, research projects, and new equipment.

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Exploring Florida River: Transforming Earth Systems Science Labs at FLC

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  1. Monitoring the Florida River How a class research project took over the labs of Earth Systems Science

  2. Earth Systems Science at FLC Constraints on course design • Intro course for major • Feeds into Historical, Mineralogy, Field Methods • Required or elective for teacher ed • Gen Ed science course with lab • Guaranteed transfer credit in Colorado • Taught by five different people • Same labs for all lecture sections • 50 students per lecture section

  3. Earth Systems Science labs • Added in 2000 for new Gen Ed program • 14-week semester • 4 to 6 sections per semester • 25 students per section • Mostly traditional sequence of labs • Required research project Topo maps Minerals and rocks (3 labs) Local geology (field trips) Weathering Earthquakes Groundwater Oceanography Weather

  4. Changing research project • Problems with student-driven research projects • Lack of student background in earth science • Limited time for project • Limited instructor time to advise intro research projects outside lab • New equipment (ICP-OES) • NSF-CCLI grant – supposed to be for transforming courses

  5. New collaborative project: monitoring Florida River • One or two sites per lab section • Three groups within each lab section (discharge, sediment, water chemistry) • Groups compare data to previous years and other sites Florida R Durango Animas R Map credit: Dan Newman ‘08

  6. Problems with collaborative project • Why are we doing this? Students didn’t choose project. • Where are we? Students are along for the ride – didn’t choose location • What does it mean? Background research Graphing experience (or not) Results from other groups

  7. …so we expanded the project Week 1: Topo maps lab Week 2: Graph peak monthly discharge by hand (not during lab) Week 3: Graph existing data with Excel (not during lab) Week 5: Background write-up (not during lab) Week 6: Expected results (not during lab) Week 9: Collect samples & data Week 11: ICP analysis (not during lab) Week 12: Share data (not during lab) Week 13: Present & discuss data Week 14: Final paper due

  8. Concepts & skills in project • Concepts • River systems: discharge, sediment load • Geochemical cycles: dissolved load and relation to weathering, rock types • Future: rock/geologic history field trips in same area? • Skills • Map-reading • Graphing data (hand, Excel) • Quantitative skills (unit conversions, discharge) • Writing • Speaking (Powerpoint presentations)

  9. Does it work? • 11 positive “it was cool testing a local river…” • 10 needs improvement “It was not as fun as I thought” “Could have been better organized but turned out well” “We could have spent more time actually understanding the process” • Most students did not comment Evaluation comments*

  10. Future plans? • Revise exercises • Assign graphing exercises in lecture? • Change other field trip locations to Florida River valley? • Revise lecture schedule to fit project schedule? • Use project as example in lecture?

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