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Despite clear scientific evidence to support an urgent need to cut greenhouse gas emissions, societal action remains inadequate to meet international climate goals. New approaches in climate change communication are needed to motivate climate action. "World Climate" is an interactive, engaging, and socially rich role-play simulation that challenges participants to negotiate a climate agreement to limit warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. During the simulation, participants use a computer model, C-ROADS, to test their greenhouse gas emissions decisions and get immediate feedback on the resulting expected climate outcomes. In 2019, several programs that assist high school and college students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds implemented the "World Climate" simulation. In total, 39 participants who displayed the largest gains in their sense of urgency about climate change, measured through pre- and post-simulation surveys, were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview regarding their experience. Twelve individuals from four different simulation sessions were interviewed, and their responses were transcribed and categorized into codes. Results from this study show that interviewees attributed gains in their climate change risk perception to the simulation and also experienced gains in collective efficacy as a result. We constructed a causal loop diagram to visualize relationships between aspects of the simulation and gains in climate change beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors based on interview data. Insights from this qualitative study show that group deliberation guided by interaction with a model are important components to increasing urgency and climate action for the subset of the population interviewed.

Communicating climate information is challenging due to the interdisciplinary nature of the topic along with compounding cognitive and affective learning challenges. Graphs are a common representation used by scientists to communicate evidence of climate change. However, it is important to identify how and why individuals on the continuum of expertise navigate graphical data differently as this has implications for effective communication of this information. We collected and analyzed eye-tracking metrics of geoscience graduate students and novice undergraduate students while viewing graphs displaying climate information. Our findings indicate that during fact-extraction tasks, novice undergraduates focus proportionally more attention on the question, title and axes graph elements, whereas geoscience graduate students spend proportionally more time viewing and interpreting data. This same finding was enhanced during extrapolation tasks. Undergraduate novices were also more likely to describe general trends, while graduate students identified more specific patterns. Undergraduates who performed high on the pre-test measuring graphing skill, viewed graphs more similar to graduate students than their peers who performed lower on the pre-test.

A science café and a concert with a panel discussion were held with public audiences to communicate information about global change and ecosystem soundscapes. Both events were evaluated through: (i) post-event surveys to measure global change perceptions, awareness, and attitudes; (ii) skin biosensors to measure the engagement levels of a sub-group of attendees; and (iii) post-event interviews with the same sub-group to better understand their reflections on and their own enjoyment and engagement at each event. Results indicate both events were beneficial to attendees, but the combined concert and panel discussion event was more engaging and enjoyable for attendees.

Spatial thinking skills are crucial for success in any of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) domains, and they are malleable. One approach to support the development of student spatial skills is through the use of innovative technologies, like the augmented reality (AR) sandbox, that can also effectively teach geoscience content in the process. In this study, we aimed to create a student-informed spatial topographic map activity designed to emphasize mental rotation, spatial orientation, and spatial visualization skills using the AR sandbox that incorporated elements such as drawing topographic profiles and recognizing stream flow direction. Furthermore, this study explored the spatial reasoning beliefs and challenges of undergraduate students at a large-enrollment Southeastern US university. Both quantitative and qualitative measures were employed to better understand student performance on and challenges with the topographic map and spatial tasks. Overall, the students found spatial visualization tasks in the activity to be the most challenging, and they were least confident in their spatial visualization skills. However, they believed that their spatial visualization skills were most improved after completing the topographic map activity, and those activities were reported to be the most effective at getting them to think in spatial terms. These results highlight that multi-step mental manipulations required to perform spatial visualization tasks are of great interest to instructors when developing topographic map activities using the AR sandbox. With more investigation, the AR sandbox has the potential to aid in the development of students' spatial visualization skills while simultaneously teaching geological content.

During the past two decades, the Geoscience Education Research (GER) community has been increasingly recognized as an evidence-based research subdiscipline in the geoscience and in the larger discipline-based education research (DBER) field. Most recently, the GER community has begun to address the current state of the field and discuss the best course forward so that it can have the greatest collective impact on advancing teaching and learning in the geosciences. The community has formally recognized that practice should be evidence based and that the strengths and limitations of community-level research claims should be transparent. As such, this commentary article describes a conceptual model--the Strength of Evidence Pyramid--as a pathway to organize the strength of evidence in the GER community of generalizable claims generated by both geo-Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and geo-DBER efforts. Its design is informed by a rubric and the outcomes of a DBER synthesis, as well as by parallels we see in the concept of evidence-based medicine in the health sciences. The proposed GER Strength of Evidence Pyramid uses five levels to categorize GER-community claims: (1) practitioner wisdom/expert opinion; original qualitative and quantitative studies, including (2) case studies and (3) cohort studies; and analyzed published literature in the form of (4) meta-analyses and (5) systematic reviews. The goal of the Pyramid is to assist geoscience-education researchers and geoscience educators to visualize, organize their thinking, and evaluate the quality of the evidence of GER-community claims. The potential applications and limitations of the model for use in the GER community are described.

The calls for a college-educated science and technology workforce, as well as a scientifically literate citizenry, have led to a demand for higher education faculty prepared in discipline-based education research (DBER). These faculty members conduct research on teaching and learning in the context of a specific discipline, including the geosciences. Historically, faculty have become active in geoscience education research (GER) after completing a graduate degree in a ''traditional'' geoscience discipline such as geomorphology, paleontology, or structural geology. Increasing demand for GER faculty has led to the growth of graduate programs specializing in GER. We explore the current state of GER graduate preparation in the United States and the issues moving forward in establishing and advancing GER graduate programs. We hope to spark discussion in the GER community about what GER graduate preparation entails, as programs grow and proliferate, to assist the community in being intentional in the preparation of future professionals. We make key recommendations for the GER community, including: (1) hold community-wide discussions about GER graduate training, (2) investigate methodological training as a shared graduate training experience in GER, (3) embed authentic teaching and research opportunities in graduate programs that mirror a student's planned career trajectory and assist them in becoming reflective teachers, (4) encourage GER faculty to continue to inform their colleagues and administrators about GER and what it is (and is not), and (5) look beyond GER to how other DBER fields design and implement graduate programs.

Summer camps have proven to be effective tools to engage students in the geosciences. Findings from this study highlight perceptions and experiences of middle school students from predominantly African American school districts in Mississippi who attended a 3-d residence camp focused on increasing interest in the geosciences through an earth hazards theme. The 2013 summer camp was structured to emphasize three subject areas: geology, hydrology, and meteorology. Nine middle school students (seven males and two females) attended the camp developed and held at Mississippi State University. Students' pre- and postcamp understanding about geoscience processes and interest in and knowledge about geoscience careers were measured to evaluate the camp's success. Overall interest in geosciences increased after completing the program. Among the three subject areas emphasized in this camp, students gained more knowledge about geology than about the other two areas (hydrology and meteorology). Results indicate that hands-on and experiential learning methods, especially those held indoors or with optimal conditions outdoors, were most successful at stimulating interest.

This study augments existing literature in understanding student perceptions about the geosciences; we examined the choice of major and science courses taken by 645 students at a large southeastern research university. Differences were examined between underrepresented minority (URM) and nonminority students. We compared responses regarding not only different sciences but also different subfields of geoscience, and where possible, we compared those subjects with biology. Our results show significant differences in (1) the selection of a college major, (2) the selection of science electives, (3) characteristics of the ideal career, (4) interest and self-efficacy in science and math, and (5) career perceptions of geoscience and other select sciences among URM and nonminority students. We identified three main factors that contributed to student selection of college major, including "important influencers," "sustained identification with or interest in that major," and "descriptors of the major itself." We also found that a student's advisor may be one of the greatest factors in which science classes an undergraduate student takes at a university. Finally, our research showed that the geosciences scored lower than other science subjects with respect to student perceptions in its ability to "help the environment," "help society," "help them find a job," and "salary." This was true for each of the geoscience fields measured when compared with every other science, technology, engineering, and math fields measured with the exception of physics.

Research has shown the highest level of understanding in the geosciences to be the ability to think about the Earth as a dynamic system. The Earth system contains four spheres: the geosphere, the hydrosphere, the biosphere, and the atmosphere. These spheres are linked through the biogeochemical cycles that move matter and energy through the various parts of the Earth system. This study aims to fill a gap in the literature by examining how undergraduate students perceive fluxes and reservoirs of important elements within the Earth system: namely carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. Through interviews, concept drawings, and surveys, undergraduate students' conceptions and alternate conceptions about the Earth System and biogeochemical cycles were collected. This study revealed that undergraduate students in both STEM and non-STEM fields tend to hold a "bio-centric" view of the carbon cycle and have more limited conceptions in terms of detail and breadth of the nitrogen and phosphorous cycles. Students who took more STEM courses and were in more interdisciplinary fields tended to have more nuanced (though not necessarily complete) conceptions of these cycles. Implications for this study involve the improvement of teaching biogeochemical concepts across disciplines, but also inform our knowledge about using these cycles in the context of systems thinking. This work also provides a baseline for future work on developing learning progressions for biogeochemical cycles and complex Earth systems and in assessing systems thinking abilities through student knowledge of biogeochemical cycles.

Research Experiences for Undergraduate (REU) programs often introduce students to scientific research and STEM career possibilities. However, the program impact on students and their research skill development is not well understood. In a case study with 10 REU students, the authors used eye-tracking and self-report data to determine student strategies for reading scientific papers and interpreting graphs at the beginning and end of the program. The strategies of REU students and science experts were then compared. The REU students changed their strategies and performed more like experts at posttest. These findings indicate that, during the REU, students acquired expert-like strategies necessary to engage with scientific articles and extract key information from graphs. The study demonstrates that eye-tracking can document skill growth in REU students.

The geoscience education research (GER) community has produced a collaborative research framework that summarizes guiding questions for future research to inform and improve undergraduate geoscience teaching and learning. The GER Framework (St. John [Ed.], 2018a) was developed through an iterative process involving multiple stages of community input. In total, approximately 200 geoscience educators and researchers contributed to this project in one or more of the following capacities: as authors, reviewers, survey respondents, workshop participants, webinar participants, town hall participants, and/or focus group participants. Review of survey data, reports, publications, and discussions resulted in a set of guiding questions and research strategies for ten research areas where individual researchers can make important contributions. While presented as distinct research areas, the ten themes have numerous cross-theme opportunities that integrate content areas, skills, and types of students. Cross-theme recommendations regarding strategies for future research are described here, along with suggested synergies with other national efforts in geoscience and STEM education.

This study measured student engagement in real time through the use of skin biosensors, specifically galvanic skin response (GSR), in a large undergraduate lecture classroom. The study was conducted during an intervention in an introductory-level biology course (N = 420) in which one section of the course was taught with active-learning approaches and the other with traditional didactic teaching. GSR results were aligned and correlated with the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics], or COPUS, and student self-reflections on their own engagement. Results showed that the active-learning section spent more time working in groups, resulting in GSR measures that trended higher and self-reported engagement, while showing indications of higher content learning gains compared with the traditional lecture section. Comparisons between COPUS scores and GSR readings indicate that engagement increased during group work and decreased during listening activities. Throughout a class period, GSR activity of the active-learning group showed increased trends compared with baseline measures, while the traditional lecture group showed decreased trends. Results indicate that GSR is a promising measure of real-time student engagement in the undergraduate classroom, bringing a new technique to discipline-based education researchers who aim to better measure student engagement; however, some limitations exist for broad-scale implementation.

This research examines a semester-long introductory environmental geology course, which emphasized climate science using an Earth systems approach and employed a multipronged teaching strategy comprising lecture, movie viewing, class dialogues, and journaling. Evidence of student engagement during various pedagogical approaches (e.g., movie viewing, lecture, and class dialogues) was measured using skin sensors on a subset of student participants in order to gauge student engagement. Results indicated that students are more engaged during movie viewing and dialogue than during lecture, with measurable increases when climate solutions and local impacts were covered. Qualitative data including journal entries and transcripts from student dialogues were analyzed to determine patterns about student climate change perspectives and discourse for which students' self-reflections supported quantitative measures. Measurement of student pre- and post-climate change knowledge, confidence, and perceptions revealed that the combined pedagogical approach supported student learning gains about climate science.

The southeastern United States (SEUS) faces numerous potential impacts from a changing climate; however, the population has been characterized with a predominance of naysayers and few climate policies have been implemented by state governments in the region. As such, public education is an important avenue for achieving a climate literate citizenry in the region. Yet little is known about the needs of and influences on this community. We developed the Climate Stewardship Survey (CSS) to assess grades 6-20 educators' knowledge and perceptions of climate change in the SEUS (South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida, and Arkansas). The population sampled was an informed volunteer sample of convenience. Our findings demonstrated little misinformation among this informed group was evident and strong knowledge and perceptions of the issue were prevalent. However, some uncertainties about the impacts and causes of climate change persisted. Also, in regard to political orientation, Democratic Party and Republican Party educators had statistically significant (p < 0.05) differences in their knowledge and perceptions, and this difference was even stronger once Protestants were subdivided by political preferences. These differences indicate that the issue is polarized in the SEUS among educators and that the coupling of political and religious orientation can strongly influence this group's climate change knowledge and perceptions. As such, this population in the SEUS may be potentially more susceptible than others to cultural cognition influences, especially since relatively few SEUS state education standards address geoscience or climate change content, particularly at levels beyond middle school, with fewer than half of the states surveyed participating in the Next Generation Science Standards development process. Although this sample was limited in its distribution among states and respondent ethnicity, the findings presented are informative about potential SEUS educators' perceptions and knowledge about climate change. As such, our findings can be used to help inform future trainers in regard to what content areas might be the principal professional development opportunities and provide future researchers potential avenues for further investigation.

Climate change education in the southeastern United States can be challenging. Due to economic factors, as well as the conservative political and faith perspectives typical of the region, high proportions (40%) of the population are not engaged, not convinced, or doubt Earth's climate is changing or that climate change has anthropogenic causes. Finding ways to bring such people into the climate change conversation is a crucial first step. This paper describes a public dialogue approach that brings together scientists with heterogeneous groups of faith, leisure/outdoor, educator, and agriculture communities to promote perspective sharing in an open and safe environment. It also describes the research we conducted on participants' experiences. Participants' postdialogue responses showed that they rated their learning about policies that might address climate change more strongly than their learning about climate science or the impacts of climate change. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of postdialogue evaluations found that three factors explained 63% of the variability in the data and represented substantively distinct components of participants' experiences: (1) feeling respected, (2) learning about climate science and policy content, and (3) learning about faith-based and other new and different perspectives about the issue. Qualitative findings supported quantitative results, suggesting that respondents felt comfortable speaking freely about their views on climate change, politics, and religion and that they valued engaging with diverse groups to have an open discussion about climate change. The dialogue approach has potential to depolarize climate change discourse through relationship building so that diverse communities can engage in productive and civil conversations expressing multiple perspectives.

This study reports on an effort to illustrate the coupling of educational research with ongoing curriculum development to promote effective and evidence-based online learning. The research findings have been used to inform the "EarthLabs" curriculum development team as they revise existing modules and create new modules, in order to represent the ways in which such research findings can be used to improve similar online curriculum materials and enhance student learning outcomes. "EarthLabs" curriculum is a suite of online inquiry-based activities that promote understanding of Earth system science. Assessments were employed to understand student learning about complex climate systems as a result of their engagement with the online "EarthLabs" curriculum. Collection of pre- and postcourse student assessment data (n = 205), classroom observations during implementation (n = 6), teacher interviews (n = 7), and eye-tracking data (n = 49) were included in the study. Qualitative and quantitative findings show that "EarthLabs" classroom implementation significantly improves students' conceptual and systems understanding and that students and external users are appropriately engaged with the online materials. These findings have been applied to evaluating the efficacy of the "EarthLabs" program in reaching target programmatic and learning goals, as well as to developing a broader understanding of the cognitive challenges students have in navigating complex Earth systems phenomena, where continued "EarthLabs" program revision has occurred through design-based research.

We developed and tested different pedagogical treatments using an Augmented Reality (AR) Sandbox to teach introductory geoscience students about reading topographic maps at five institutions in both pilot and full implementation studies. The AR Sandbox treatments were characterized as 1) unstructured play, 2) a semi-structured lesson, and 3) a structured lesson. The success of each was contrasted with the control condition of a traditional topographic map lab without the AR Sandbox. Students completed a subset of questions from the Topographic Maps Assessment (TMA) and a series of mental rotation questions post-implementation. No significant differences were found on TMA post-test scores between groups who used the unstructured Sandbox play treatment compared to the control condition. Semi-structured and structured lesson formats similarly failed to produce a statistically significant difference on the TMA post-test. This indicates that no single treatment worked universally better than another. However, regression analysis showed two factors significantly predicted performance on the TMA, including spatial performance and self-assessed knowledge (or confidence) of topographic maps. Of the groups that used the Sandbox, students with low and high scores on the mental rotation test performed best on the TMA following the structured treatment.

Augmented reality (AR) sandboxes are useful tools in helping students develop a three-dimensional understanding of topographic maps and landforms. Research on the AR sandbox indicates that students enjoy it, but evidence about student learning gains is inconclusive. This study aims to understand how students engage with these tools as a precedent to understanding learning gains. Technology in the form of skin biosensors allows researchers to measure skin conductance (or electrodermal activity -- EDA) as a proxy for student engagement. This study used wrist biosensors to monitor the engagement of students exposed to different instructional treatments of an AR sandbox in an introductory lab course. The data were supplemented by dynamic video of the students interacting with the sandbox. Statistical analysis of the EDA data suggests that the use of an AR sandbox, particularly during structured lab activities, increases student engagement. Regression modeling supports a relationship between spatial reasoning skills. Based on video data, students' collaborative and social interactions also showed a significant relationship with EDA. These results suggest that instructors focus on developing and using structured and collaborative activities when incorporating AR sandboxes in their courses in order to best engage students.

To improve climate education in an introductory weather and climate course, an active-learning lab was developed around a climate decision support system. The Climate Analysis and Visualization for the Assessment of Species Status (CAnVAS) tool allows individuals to view various climate variables and select a particular location and species to analyze. Undergraduate participants used CAnVAS to answer questions about the climate data they were plotting and completed a concept map about how endangered species will be impacted by climate change. A pre- and post-assessment was also given to participants, during three separate semesters, to measure knowledge changes that may have been affiliated with the CAnVAS intervention. When CAnVAS was implemented, increases in pre-to-post-assessment performance were measured (approximately 10% in Fall 2021, 7% in Fall 2022, and 6% in Fall 2023). The concept maps revealed that on average, participants drew approximately seven relevant lines and circles. This study demonstrated the efficacy of the CAnVAS tool through a pedagogical intervention deployed in an introductory weather and climate undergraduate classroom. The results contribute to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning literature by testing the efficacy of a decision support system within the classroom setting using the e-learning theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines discrepancies between geoscience career knowledge and biology career knowledge among Mississippi science teachers. Principals and in-service teachers were also surveyed about their perception of geoscience careers and majors. Scores were higher for knowledge of what biologists do (at work) than about what geoscientists do. Career knowledge was enhanced by race, where African American teachers perceived higher biology career knowledge and lower geoscience career knowledge than other races; however, the difference was not significant. Teachers also rated their personal knowledge of 12 of the 2010 Earth and Space Science Content Strand topics. Perceived knowledge of geoscience concepts was significantly less than knowledge of more environmental topics. Race was not significant, but differences between the two topics were enhanced by race. Perceived knowledge of geoscience topics was also significantly lower among female educators across all ethnicities. Because of the lack of Earth science classes taught before college and the demonstrated gaps in geoscience career knowledge even among science teachers, strengthening geoscience career awareness as well as increasing geoscience content knowledge among science teachers would be useful overall, as well as in attempts to enhance diversity in the geosciences.

The Climate Stewardship Survey (CSS) was developed to measure knowledge and perceptions of global climate change, while also considering information sources that respondents 'trust.' The CSS was drafted using a three-stage approach: development of salient scales, writing individual items, and field testing and analyses. Construct validity and alpha-level reliability was conducted on the 122-item test instrument to produce a refined 84-item CSS. The field tested CSS includes five scales (1) Impacts of Climate Change, (2) Causes of Climate Change (3) Misunderstandings about Climate Change (4) Issues and (5) Policy. Four knowledge dimension sub-scales and seven perception dimension sub-scales are included in the accepted instrument. The CSS is particularly applicable to studies interested in measuring potential respondent's ideas on the impacts, causes, and misunderstandings that are important to global climate change knowledge and perceptions as they relate specifically toward climate change issues and policy.

Scientific modeling and systems thinking (SMST) is central to the geosciences, yet few studies have documented how and to what extent undergraduate geoscience courses emphasize SMST, as well as factors that might help explain or predict these trends. Here, we present research based on data (n = 2056) from the most recent (2016) administration of the National Geoscience Faculty Survey, administered to a national sample of postsecondary geoscience instructors in the United States. We investigated instructor- and course-related variables as they relate to a set of 9 survey items that serve as a composite measure for SMST. Significant variation was observed in reported frequencies of individual SMST practices in undergraduate geoscience courses. The highest levels of reported SMST were associated with faculty from atmospheric and environmental sciences, those who emphasized research-based, student-centered pedagogical practices, those who recently made changes to both course content and teaching methods, and those who reported high levels of engagement in instructional improvement activities (workshops, presentations, seminars). Reported SMST practices were similar for faculty identifying as geoscientists and geoscience education researchers, and both were significantly higher than for teaching-focused faculty who do not conduct research. A linear regression model including variables found to be significant in the analyses was able to predict 17% of the overall variance in reported SMST practices. These findings illustrate the importance of instructors' disciplinary orientation and active engagement in instructional innovation as related to SMST, and provide important points of impact for enhancing SMST in undergraduate geoscience courses through course design and faculty development. However, the relatively modest predictive power of the regression model indicates there are many other factors influencing SMST that warrant future research.

What is the extent to which college and university geoscience faculty report using education practices that contribute to more inclusive learning environments and engage a diverse population of students? In the 2016 National Geoscience Faculty Survey, faculty answered questions about their practices in a specific introductory or major course they had taught in the previous two years, and about how they share and learn about the content and methods used in their teaching. Based on factor analysis, 22 of the survey questions divided into four categories associated with inclusive teaching practices: geoscientist representations, curricular choices, learning strategies, and career pathways. The self-reported use of practices across these four categories varies greatly, with some used by as many as 71% of faculty respondents whereas others by only 8%. These data provide new information on the current state of teaching practices in the geosciences with regard to inclusive practices, and establish a baseline to which responses from future surveys may be compared. Univariate general modeling combined with ANOVA tests on the responses to the questions shows that education practices differ based on variables such as teaching style, communication with colleagues, years of teaching experience, faculty type, institution type, class size, and course type (introductory or major). These differences suggest opportunities for focused geoscience faculty development around education practices that support the success of a diverse population of undergraduate students and the enhancement of inclusive learning environments in the geosciences.

We evaluated influences on the climate change risk perceptions of undergraduate students in an introductory Earth Science course. For this sample, domain-specific content knowledge about climate change was a significant predictor of students' risk perception of climate change while cultural worldviews (individualism, hierarchy) and political orientation were not. These results contrast with previous studies highlighting worldviews as a dominant influence on risk perception. At the beginning of the semester, students' climate change content knowledge was relatively low, with average scores on a 21-item test less than 50%. Post instruction results indicated that students learned climate change science during the course, and their perceptions of risks associated with climate change increased. Unlike most prior research evaluating links between climate change knowledge and risk perception, our measure of content knowledge was a validated assessment specific to climate change. Use of this specific climate knowledge test may be one reason that we detected a relationship between climate knowledge and risk perception whereas most of the previous research has not. Another--possibly complementary--explanation may be a generational shift between our study sample and prior samples. Undergraduates today, having grown up with more exposure to climate change in schools and the media than previous generations, may be diverging from average adults in that learning climate science appears to also increase their perceptions of the risks climate change poses. Undergraduate courses with embedded climate-related activities present an opportunity to both increase climate science knowledge and risk perceptions of future decision makers.

Groundwater is a critical resource globally, and understanding groundwater processes is vital to ensure sustainable management practices. However, there are many widely held misconceptions and inaccuracies about groundwater, and we currently lack tools to measure groundwater knowledge across large populations and measure how groundwater knowledge relates to management decisions or behaviors. Here, we present a survey instrument, the Groundwater Concept Inventory (GWCI), that has been designed for general audiences to measure groundwater knowledge comparable to that in an introductory geoscience curriculum. The GWCI was developed using ∼1200 responses using an online platform, Amazon Mechanical Turks, to represent a general population. Responses were evaluated using the Rasch model that configures a relationship between person‐ability and item‐difficulty. We found that the study population displayed similar misconceptions about groundwater compared with previous literature, and that age and education were not strong predictors of GWCI scores. The GWCI can be used by researchers to understand links between knowledge and behavior, and also by other stakeholders to quantify misconceptions about groundwater and target resources for a more informed public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the historically low numbers of minorities in geoscience careers and college majors, an area of growing attention is how teacher professional development may be utilized to increase diversity in the geosciences (Pecore et al., 2007; Sedlock & Metzger, 2007). This paper examines teacher preferences for the timing, location and content of professional development, and how certain characteristics of professional development may contribute to or diminish the goal of increasing diversity in the geosciences. The results of two surveys of Mississippi science teachers indicate that African American teachers have distinct preferences for the location of the professional development as well as specific opinions about the outdoors. Despite the common practice of using field experiences to attract individuals to the geosciences, those African American science teachers who were surveyed more frequently chose laboratory experiences than outdoor or field-based professional development. Preferences of rural and urban/suburban participants were also compared. Urban/suburban participants expressed greater enjoyment in being outdoors than rural participants, but neither group was more likely to prefer professional development in the field or in a lab. Results of spatial clustering showed less preference for outdoor learning activities in the high-minority Mississippi Delta. (Contains 1 table and 5 figures.)

This study characterizes the impact of an inquiry-based learning (IBL) module versus a traditionally structured laboratory exercise. Laboratory sections were randomized into experimental and control groups. The experimental group was taught using IBL pedagogical techniques and included manipulation of large-scale data-sets, use of multiple representations and a physical model and exposure to ill-constrained problems common to the Texas Gulf Coast. The control groups were taught using traditional laboratory activities. The groups were not significantly different prior to exposure. Pre/post-expressed conceptual models and final written reports indicate that the experimental group had greater increases in their conceptual model development of sand-sediment transport. (Contains 7 figures and 8 tables.)