Monitoring the Florida River

How a class research project took over the labs of Earth Systems Science

Earth Systems Science at FLCConstraints 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

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

EarthquakesGroundwaterOceanographyWeather

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

Durango

Animas R

Florida R

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

Map credit: Dan Newman ‘08

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 researchGraphing experience (or not)Results from other groups

…so we expanded the projectWeek 1: Topo maps labWeek 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 & dataWeek 11: ICP analysis (not during lab)Week 12: Share data (not during lab)Week 13: Present & discuss dataWeek 14: Final paper due

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)

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*

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?