Enriching Undergraduate Environmental Science Education in the Rockies

Enriching Undergraduate Environmental Science Education in the Rockies

Grant:
Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching
Academic Year:
2011 - 2012 (June 1, 2011 through May 31, 2012)
Funding Requested:
$10,000.00
Project Dates:
-
Applicant(s):
poulsen
gdick
Overview of the Project:
Introduction to Environmental Science in the Rockies (EARTH 202) is a new interdisciplinary field course taught for the first time at the Camp Davis Rocky Mountain Field Station in Wyoming in the spring of 2011. This proposal requests support from the Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching to broaden and enrich the curriculum and student participation in EARTH 202 through the acquisition of scientific equipment and media technology for use in team research projects and production of video logs.
Final Report Fields
Project Objectives:
The objectives of the project are to enrich and diversity the curriculum in EARTH 202, Introduction to Environmental Science in the Rockies. The course was started in summer 2010. At that point, many of the activities we planned and hoped to do were hampered by the lack or malfunctioning of equipment.
Project Achievements:
In the first year, we used funding through the Whitaker Grant to purchase water quality kits, HOBO data loggers, spotting scopes, and upgrades to the Camp Davis meteorological station. This equipment made possible four all-day team-oriented activities centered on water quality issues, ecosystem science, and meteorology and climate change. These field activities were very popular among the students, and culminated in both written and oral presentations by the student teams.
Continuation:
Yes. The project will continue for an additional year (summer 2013). In addition to expanding and improving the field-related activities in this course, we will incorporate the use of video logs for students to communicate their learning to a broad audience.
Dissemination:
In addition to publication of reports on the CRLT website, we will discuss the our project and experiences with colleagues at monthly peer-mentoring meetings of the junior faculty in our department.
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