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Geology is a subject of low interest for many pupils and teachers. The present study aims at examining the organizational conditions for geology education using the model of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, drawing from the national curricula. The study discusses the possible reasons for the unpopularity of the field worldwide and proposes general recommendations that would contribute to increasing interest in geoscience. The main drawbacks of geology education seem to be the large volume of required knowledge, its thematic structure, and a lack of links to real life. The Czech curriculum is vaguely and theoretically defined, placing demand on pupils, especially in the area of memorizing given information and practically pays no attention to recommended teaching methods. In contrast, the Slovak curriculum better reflects current trends. In general, it is necessary to implement continuous educational support for geology teachers and restructure the geology syllabus so that individual sub-fields are interlinked. Moreover, the learning outcome definition should include action-based education, fieldwork, experimenting, and similar elements.

Copyright of CEPS Journal is the property of University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Geology in secondary education has faced many difficulties when it comes to teaching in the classroom with a holistic, contextualized and applicable approach for students. Currently, there is a growing commitment from teachers to implement innovative teaching methods that place students as the active subjects of their learning. The Educational Escape Room (EER) is a tool within Game-Based Learning that consists of designing challenges and puzzles within a theme where theoretical contents are dynamically addressed. In this approach, students must solve a series of tests within 45 minutes and find the final key with which they will be able to leave the classroom. The present work consists of designing an analogical EER proposal on earthquakes and implementing it as an assessment instrument within a didactic unit for students in the 4th year of ESO (Compulsory Secondary Education, in its Spanish acronym). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensive consumption and massive waste generation are considered some of the most important current socio-environmental issues. In view of this, education is considered key. In this paper, we analyse one of the most widely used teaching resources in secondary school classrooms: the textbook (TB). The results of the analysis of 14 TB of 7th and 10th grade indicate that they do not establish adequate connections between the causes, consequences and possible solutions to the problem, nor do they contextualise them in the students' possibilities for action. Furthermore, the images used do not provide relevant information and are inoperative, while the activities do not favour the development of the responsibilities and commitments needed to promote changes in behaviours. Therefore, the TBs analysed do not contribute to the desired awareness, neither to the promotion of more sustainable attitudes and habits in the face of this socio-environmental problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an anthropocynical epoch of severe environmental crisis, geoscientists have unique skills to drive the transition to sustainability. Therefore, the geological literacy of society is essential to seek solutions to major challenges. However, the formal education of geology differs considerably from the desirable. Fortunately, there are out of school organizations in charge of geology outreach. In this work, an analysis and redesign of the teaching material offered by the GeoEskolak program of the Geopark of the Basque Coast is carried out. This material is aimed to 4th grade secondary education students who visit the Flysch of Zumaia. The new "Teacher's Manual" has been developed following the strategy defined by the DBS methodology for the design of a sequence and is adapted to the LOMLOE curriculum and the Sustainable Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the historical development, current state, and future perspectives of geology education in the Czech Republic. The theoretical part of the article presents analysis of the evolution of the geology curriculum and its position within the Czech educational system. It highlights significant personalities and events in geological sciences and describes the changes in geology education since the 18th century to the present. The empirical part of the article employs qualitative research through focus group interviews to reflect on current approaches to geology education in lower secondary schools (ISCED 2). The respondents included ninthgrade students from primary schools, teacher education students at the Faculty of Science of Charles University, and science teachers. Based on their statements, SWOT analyses were created to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with geology education. Strengths include practical field exercises and field trips that provide students a direct contact with geological materials and demonstrate interdisciplinary connections between geology, chemistry, physics, and geography. Weaknesses involve low student interest, lack of teaching aids, and the complexity of integrating geology into other subjects. Threats include low teacher motivation and inadequate resources in school natural science collections, while opportunities lie in tandem teaching and collaboration with research and educational institutions. The article emphasizes the need to strengthen interdisciplinary connections, increase teacher support and motivation through further education, and improve school collection. Emphasis is also placed on popularizing geology to make it more attractive not only to students but also to the broader public. Overall, it is essential for geology education to respond to current challenges and trends, thus contributing to the formation of comprehensive scientific education that will inspire students to further study and interest in natural sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial ability is important for success in STEM fields but is typically measured using a small number of tests that were not developed in the STEM context, have not been normed with recent samples, or have not been subjected to modern psychometric analyses. Here, an approach to developing valid, reliable, and efficient computer-based tests of spatial skills is proposed and illustrated via the development of an efficient test of the ability to visualize cross-sections of three-dimensional (3D) objects. After pilot testing, three measures of this ability were administered online to 498 participants (256 females, aged 18–20). Two of the measures, the Santa Barbara Solids and Planes of Reference tests had good psychometric properties and measured a domain-general ability to visualize cross-sections, with sub-factors related to item difficulty. Item-level statistics informed the development of the refined versions of these tests and a combined measure composed of the most informative test items. Sex and ethnicity had no significant effects on the combined measure after controlling for mathematics education, verbal ability, and age. The measures ofcross-sectioning ability developed in the context of geology education were found to be too difficult, likely because they measured domain knowledge in addition to cross-sectioning ability. Recommendations are made for the use of cross-section tests in selection and training and for the more general development of spatial ability measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myriad research in a variety of contexts shows spatial skills benefit students; however, they are not given enough attention in classroom instruction. In this review we systematically explore geoscience education literature focusing on spatial interventions to answer research questions on trends in spatial skills and other characteristics. We narrow our attention to studies published since numerous calls to action to teach more spatial skills in STEM education, resulting in 28 articles for review. To analyse and compare these studies, we organise the literature into a framework of geoscience-relevant spatial skills. We reviewed interventions and assessments to determine the aligning spatial typology skills. Themes of coursework, mapping, and modelling emerged; sub-themes include sketching, gestures, physical models, computer models, and curricular interventions. In the articles reviewed, just over half of the skills identified were intrinsic skills. Future geospatial research should explore how best to incorporate spatial skills into the classroom over long time periods and should focus on the process of spatial reasoning and the strategies students use when problem-solving about spatial phenomena, especially at the elementary and secondary school level. Educators can use the resources outlined in this review to engage in spatialising their curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial and temporal scales are essential components of geological sciences; both are almost always imbricated in complex ways, challenging geoscientific knowledge among nonspecialists and students. The present paper focuses on the efforts made by the French naturalist Simon-Suzanne Nérée Boubée (1806–62) regarding popular education on geology. Though Boubée is poorly known nowadays, he experienced some prestige during his lifetime. He worked as an independent teacher, offering private as well as free public courses. Boubée, as a nineteenth-century science popularizer, repeatedly insisted on his disposition for "spreading science for all." He extensively published books and journals on geology, all aimed at popularizing geological scientific knowledge, considered to be of paramount relevance. This paper analyzes three visual examples extracted from his works: the Tableau Mnémonique des Terrains Primitifs, destiné au géologue voyageur, avec son explication (1831), the Tableau de l'État du Globe à ses différents âges (1832), and the Tableau figuratif de la structure minérale du globe, ou résumé synoptique du Cours de géognosie de M. N. Boubée (1839), supplemented with images from the travel guide Deux Promenades au Mont Doré (1834). Our goal is to understand Boubée's efforts to synthesize information, scaling down geologic time and space into foldable materials that made geological knowledge cognitively and materially accessible to laypeople. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching geology under COVID-19 pandemic conditions led to teaching limitations for educators and learning difficulties for students. The lockdown obstructed face-to-face teaching, laboratory work, and fieldtrips. To minimize the impact of this situation, new distance learning teaching methods and tools were developed. The current study presents the results of an empirical study, where distance learning teaching tools were constructed and used to teach geology to university students. A mineralogical mobile phone application was used to replace laboratory mineral identification and a flow chart to replace laboratory rock identification. Additionally, exercises on faults and maps were developed to fill the gap that was created as field work was impossible. A university course on geology was designed on the basis of the constructed distance learning teaching tools, and more than 100 students from the Department of Civil Engineering attended the course. The results show that the proposed tools helped the students to considerably understand scientific information on geology and supported the learning outcomes. Thus, it is suggested that the teaching tools, constructed for the purposes of the study, could be used in conditions when distance learning is required, or even under typical learning conditions after laboratories, as well as before or after fieldtrips, for better learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current Spanish curriculum includes the Earth Sciences in the Social Sciences only for Primary Education. This separation of the Natural Sciences not only hinders the sequencing of geological contents throughout the pre-university curricula, but could also lead to shortcomings with respect to school scientific practice. This study, predominantly of qualitative nature, presents the results and conclusions about the presence and diversity of the practices of inquiry, argumentation and modeling, as well as communication, in the blocks related to the Earth Sciences in the national curriculum and in the curriculum of the Basque Country. In addition, we analyze those blocks referring to a related discipline, the biology, in order to make the analysis comparative; as well as those referring to common contents. The results reveal: i) that the Earth Sciences rely almost exclusively on low complexity modeling supported by technical-manipulative practices; and ii) that argumentation is weak, with inquiry being practically absent. In addition, it is found that, if the Earth Sciences had been placed in the Natural Sciences, the contents common to the latter, which are fundamentally rich in inquiry, would have nourished the Earth Sciences in the necessary scientific practice. As a consequence, the students of Primary Education could not develop in relation to the Earth Sciences what was planned for the rest of the natural science disciplines, as well as acquire a partial vision of how science is done. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the conceptions about the geological time of students in the 4th year of ESO and 1st and 2nd years of university. A timeline of the Earth’s history and a questionnaire composed of closed-ended questions about the frequency and duration of processes related to landscape modelling were used as research instruments. The results indicated that the students had serious difficulties when working with scales and absolute ages, and contradictions were observed between the values assigned on the timelines and the absolute values given to each event. The most problematic events to be placed on the timelines were those that were more recent and those that involved shorter time spans. In the case of landform processes, internal processes involving longer time spans were the most problematic. This opens up some possibilities to facilitate learning about these aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The undergraduate geoscience program concludes with a field-based capstone course that equips the graduating geologist with basic field-mapping abilities. However, many of the field-based geoscience programs have been temporarily halted or converted to an online version because of the COVID-19 outbreak. The South Dakota Mines created an online course to fulfill the demand for graduating seniors in the vast discipline of geoscience. Considering that this is a new way of delivering this course, it is important to understand the effectiveness of this online course. Thus, the main goal of the present study is to determine students' online learning satisfaction and its relationship with online learning self-efficacy. A total of 33 students participated in the study. Two instruments were used for this study: one for assessing online learning self-efficacy and the other for evaluating online learning satisfaction. Descriptive statistics and Pearson product correlation analysis were conducted to analyze data. The results indicated that students had high levels of self-efficacy beliefs and their learning satisfaction score was high as well. It was also found that self-efficacy to complete an online course was significantly related to learning satisfaction. Discussion of the findings and suggestions for online teaching and learning are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a classic locale for geology education in the White Mountains, CA, to demonstrate a novel approach for using imaging spectroscopy (hyperspectral imaging) to generate base maps for the purpose of geologic mapping. The base maps produced in this fashion are complementary to, but distinct from, maps of mineral abundance. The approach synthesizes two concepts in imaging spectroscopy data analysis: the spectral mixture residual and joint characterization. First, the mixture residual uses a linear, generalizable, and physically based continuum removal model to mitigate the confounding effects of terrain and vegetation. Then, joint characterization distinguishes spectrally distinct geologic units by isolating residual, absorption-driven spectral features as nonlinear manifolds. Compared to most traditional classifiers, important strengths of this approach include physical basis, transparency, and near-uniqueness of result. Field validation confirms that this approach can identify regions of interest that contribute significant complementary information to PCA alone when attempting to accurately map spatial boundaries between lithologic units. For a geologist, this new type of base map can complement existing algorithms in exploiting the coming availability of global hyperspectral data for pre-field reconnaissance and geologic unit delineation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the concept of using video games as a form of geoscience communication has been gaining momentum. Popular commercial video games see millions of people around the world immersed in wonderous landscapes, many filled with real geological features including volcanoes, mineral deposits, and dinosaurs. Even though these features can be overlooked by many players as simple video game tropes, if utilised in educational environments or scientific outreach events, such video games could be used to encourage and stimulate the teaching of geoscientific concepts, both in the classroom or in their own time. This paper will focus on the geo-educational potential of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the latest game in the popular Pocket-Monster franchise, Pokémon. Released at the start of 2022 on the Nintendo Switch, the game saw over 6.5 million players in its first week explore the virtual open-world landscape of Hisui. Unlike several popular commercial video games that are set in a fictional landscape, Hisui is directly based on the real-world island of Hokkaido, northern Japan. From an educational standpoint, Pokémon Legends: Arceus could be used as a powerful tool to help younger students engage more in their learning by utilising their natural affinity to the popular game and showcasing the many geological and geomorphological features found across the landscape of Hisui. This paper showcases how geological and geomorphic features can be identified in the game and researched using formal (peer-reviewed literature) and informal (online websites) resources to learn about the geological origin of their real-world counterparts on Hokkaido. Applications for this study could prove to be extremely useful for not only increasing interest and facilitating the self-learning of geoscience worldwide, but also for teaching in educational environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most famous criminal investigations involved the use of forensic geology to assist law enforcement agencies in the homicide case of the Italian honorable Aldo Moro. Notwithstanding this important tribute to forensic geology, in Italy, the role and value of using geological and soil materials (known as earth materials) to support law enforcement agencies in solving criminal investigations remain uncommon. This absence may be due to few educational courses for geology undergraduates/graduates devoted to laboratory and field training in forensic geology. The flipped classroom model may encourage a modern educational approach for teaching and learning forensic geology. The designed flipped classroom model applies theoretical concepts for forensic geology, which is learned by the attendees at home, whereas the class activities are devoted to laboratory and field experiences assisted by teaching staff. The laboratory activities involve techniques for collecting geological trace evidence and comparing color/sedimentological/mineralogical/microfossil features, whereas the field experiences consist of sampling strategies, search activities for burials, and field surveying. This approach has been trialed by the Messina University since 2014 and represents a successful tool for multitasking teaching and learning aimed to further develop forensic geology, encourage the inclusion of forensic geologists within the police enforcement in Italy, and improve the knowledge of law experts such as prosecutors and defense lawyers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experts have noted that the interest of the general population in geology has decreased. This seems to be related to an exclusion of geology from compulsory education curriculum. However, it is mandatory that the students who complete compulsory secondary school acquire a correct literacy in Earth Sciences, in which understanding external geological processes and their action on the relief is a key content. Our study has evaluated which external geological processes are taught in the compulsory secondary school of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. To this end, the most commonly used textbooks were analyzed and teachers were asked to fill out questionnaires. Both sources reveal that the current teaching of this unit shows deficiencies and, consequently, needs improvement in both the quality of the texts used and in the time and space devoted to this unit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early months of 2020, as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) swept across the globe, millions of people were required to make drastic changes to their lives to help contain the impact of the virus. Among those changes, scientific conferences of every type and size were forced to cancel or postpone in order to protect public health. Included in these was the European Geosciences Union (EGU) 2020 General Assembly, an annual conference for Earth, planetary, and space scientists, scheduled to be held in Vienna, Austria, in May 2020. After a 6-week period of changing the format to an online alternative, attendees of the newly designed EGU20: Sharing Geoscience Online took part in the first geoscience conference of its size to go fully online. This paper explores the feedback provided by participants following this experimental conference and identifies four key themes that emerged from an analysis of the following questions: what did attendees miss from a regular meeting, and to what extent did going online impact the event itself, both in terms of challenges and opportunities? The themes identified are "connecting", "engagement", "environment", and "accessibility". These themes include concepts relating to discussions of the value of informal connections and spontaneous scientific discovery during conferences, the necessity of considering the environmental cost of in-person meetings, and the opportunities for widening participation in science by investing in accessibility. The responses in these themes cover the spectrum of experiences of participants, from positive to negative, and raise important questions about what conference providers of the future will need to do to meet the needs of the scientific community in the years following this coronavirus outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic hindered the ability to conduct field geology courses in a hands-on and boots-on traditional manner. In response, we designed a multi-part virtual field module that encompasses many of the basic requirements of an advanced field exercise, including designing a mapping strategy, collecting and processing field observations, synthesizing data from field-based and laboratory analyses, and communicating the results to a broad audience. For the mapping exercise, which is set in deformed Proterozoic crystalline basement exposed in the Front Range of Colorado (USA), student groups make daily navigational decisions and choose stations based on topographic maps, Google Earth satellite imagery, and iterative geological reasoning. For each station, students receive outcrop descriptions, measurements, and photographs from which they input field data and create geologic maps using StraboSpot. Building on the mapping exercise, student groups then choose from six supplements, including advanced field structure, microstructure, metamorphic petrology, and several geochronological datasets. Because scientific projects rarely end when the mapping is complete, the students are challenged to see how samples and analytical data may commonly be collected and integrated with field observations to produce a more holistic understanding of the geological history of the field area. While a virtual course cannot replace the actual field experience, modules like the one shared here can successfully address, or even improve on, some of the key learning objectives that are common to field-based capstone experiences while also fostering a more accessible and inclusive learning environment for all students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Field trips are an essential part for geoscience students, as the field is intrinsic for understanding what they are taught in the classroom. Yet, distance learning has never been more necessary than today. Despite their significance in the students' education, field trips cannot be performed under the present conditions with the COVID-19 pandemic. Educators are called to find, use and evolve various tools in order to offer students quality education, with an effort to eliminate the drawbacks of the lack of physical contact and "live" field work. Virtual field trips are one such tool through which one can virtually see any place on the globe by means of a computer, tablet, or even mobile phone, without physically visiting it. In this paper, we present the results of a virtual field trip developed for students following the Geomorphology course of the Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; it can, however, be used from other universities with similar courses not only in Greece but also in other countries as well. The purpose of this study is the evaluation of virtual field trips, both as an alternative to and/or substitute for in situ field work and as a means of preparation for live field trips, by taking into consideration the students' views through an anonymous questionnaire. Our findings suggest that virtual field trips are useful for geoscience students, and they provide a good alternative during restriction periods, and although they can under no circumstances substitute real field trips, they can be a valuable additional tool when preparing for a live field trip. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic occurred at a time of major revolution in the geosciences - the era of digital geology. Digital outcrop models (DOMs) acquired from consumer drones, processed using user-friendly photogrammetric software and shared with the wider audience through online platforms are a cornerstone of this digital geological revolution. Integration of DOMs with other geoscientific data, such as geological maps, satellite imagery, terrain models, geophysical data and field observations, strengthens their application in both research and education. Teaching geology with digital tools advances students' learning experience by providing access to high-quality outcrops, enhancing visualization of 3D geological structures and improving data integration. Similarly, active use of DOMs to integrate new field observations will facilitate more effective fieldwork and quantitative research. From a student's perspective, georeferenced and scaled DOMs allow for an improved appreciation of scale and of 3D architecture, which is a major threshold concept in geoscientific education. DOMs allow us to bring geoscientists to the outcrops digitally, which is particularly important in view of the Covid-19 pandemic that restricts travel and thus direct access to outcrops. At the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), located at 78° N in Longyearbyen in Arctic Norway, DOMs are actively used even in non-pandemic years, as the summer field season is short and not overlapping with the Bachelor "Arctic Geology" course package held from January to June each year. In 2017, we at UNIS developed a new course (AG222 "Integrated Geological Methods: From Outcrop To Geomodel") to encourage the use of emerging techniques like DOMs and data integration to solve authentic geoscientific challenges. In parallel, we have established the openaccess Svalbox geoscientific portal, which forms the backbone of the AG222 course activities and provides easy access to a growing number of DOMs, 360° imagery, subsurface data and published geoscientific data from Svalbard. Considering the rapid onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Svalbox portal and the pre-Covid work on digital techniques in AG222 allowed us to rapidly adapt and fulfil at least some of the students' learning objectives during the pandemic. In this contribution, we provide an overview of the course development and share experiences from running the AG222 course and the Svalbox platform, both before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the growing body of research and vivid scientific discourse, the Anthropocene is slowly making its way into the curricula of geography programs across the world. Unlike academic geography, the school subject seems to be more reluctant when it comes to the Anthropocene's implicit implementation. Using content analysis, this article explores how geography curricula or compound subjects containing geography for lower secondary education in fifty countries represented the Anthropocene. The results showed that most curricula detached the Anthropocene from geological time and focused, in a disconnected manner, on three of its descriptors, namely, population growth, industrialization, and globalization. Greenhouse gases played a subordinate role. Also, most curricula operated at the national or global scale, leaving little room to navigate processes on several scales. The results also revealed few differences between curricula prescribing geography as an independent subject or as part of compound subjects, such as social studies or social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Third year geoscience students were introduced to digital tools for fieldwork, Fieldmove on iPads, in a capstone field mapping course at Oslo University, Norway. Despite little prior experience with digital tools for fieldwork, they became independent Fieldmove users in a few hours. They self-report positive cognitive impacts, including positive effects on quality of fieldwork, maps and reports. However, submitted course material suggest students achieved similar levels of understanding with and without digital tools. We hypothesize that students' confidence in their work increases when supported by digital tools, however, they may also overrate their proficiency due to the ease of collecting large data sets, and the professional look of the digital outputs. Students report both positive and negative effects on teamwork; observations suggest this reflects sharing of devices rather than use of digital tools per se. The students also report pronounced positive affective impacts, which appear to be the main effect of the digital tools in this study. Overall, the students are very positive to digital tools in fieldwork, preferring they were introduced early during the bachelor program, but after traditional field methods are learnt. When given a choice, most students chose to combine traditional and digital tools for their fieldwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that interest is associated with learning in educational research, understanding how its development can be supported in different learning contexts represents an important line of inquiry. In this study, we investigate the influence of the slowmation construction process on middle school students' interest in learning science and geology. Both quantitative and qualitative data were generated from four classes of ninth-grade students; two classes participated in the construction of a slowmation about tectonic plate boundaries (n = 52) and two classes experienced a state-mandated programme of instruction (n = 43). The students completed the Student Interest in Learning Science Survey, a Likert-style instrument, which examined their level of situational and individual interest prior to their participation in the study and upon their completion of the construction task or mandated instruction. Statistical analyses of these data revealed that the students who constructed a slowmation demonstrated significant increases in their interest in learning science and geology, while the students who experienced regular classroom instruction demonstrated lower levels of interest by the end of the study. Interview data obtained from students who constructed a slowmation suggest that the construction process afforded opportunities to work and learn in active, hands-on and collaborative ways; to exercise creativity; and to engage with technology. Importantly, increases in students' interest appeared to emerge from the early attentional and affective stages of their interest development, rather than through a meaningful connection to the geological subject matter, which has theoretical implications for interest research in learning contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Electrónica Interuniversitaria De Formación del Profesorado is the property of Asociacion Universitaria de Formacion del Profesorado (AUFOP) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article we share ideas that were explored with teachers during a Geophysical Information for Teachers (GIFT) workshop at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2018. In that workshop we related the use of Immersive Virtual Field Trips (IVFTs) in geoscience education to principles of place-based education (PBE), which has an established research base within geoscience education (Semken, Ward, Moosavi, & Chinn, 2017). We argue here that IVFTs have several applications in geoscience education--including IVFTs that are created by individual teachers, K-12 students, or third parties and made available online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science and technology are driving people's life changes, including education and the environment. Many scholars have attempted to import technology into the classroom to help students learn in different subjects. However, students often need assistance with unfamiliar learning approaches and learning environments. This study proposed a non‐immersive virtual reality (VR) guidance system combined with a two‐tier strategy to help students learn geology knowledge. Two groups of students used different learning approaches: the experimental group students were guided by the two‐tier test VR guidance system, and the control group students learned with the conventional VR guidance system. According to the experimental result, the two‐tier test VR guidance system not only improved the students' learning achievement in natural science, but also enhanced their learning motivation. In addition, according to the sequential results, we found that VR learning materials or environmental resources can help students answer questions and solve problems more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, commercial Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become more accessible for use in civil roles such as scientific research. Despite their increasing use in research, there has been little investigation of their potential use as an educational tool in Geoscience. This small-scale mixed methods research investigated the potential benefits and challenges of using UAVs in fieldwork at two North West of England Universities. UAVs have shown to have the potential to be a useful tool for use in Geoscience fieldwork by offering students many learning benefits such as; providing different perspectives of a landscape, the ability to collect data from inaccessible locations and to enhance student data collection skills. However, there are substantial barriers to introducing UAVs in fieldwork such as laws and licencing, privacy, time, cost and a lack of students being allowed to fly the aircraft legally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which explores the study and teaching of the proposed Anthropocene geological epoch. Topics discussed include the evaluation of anthropogenic effects on climate change and human-nature interactions, references such as books and published journals which may be utilized to address controversies linked to the Anthropocene concept, and the potential benefits of the study of the Anthropocene to geographers.

Why do we take A level students into the field? What makes good geological fieldwork? How do we embed maths and IT skills into our practice? This article is a write up of a session I ran at the 2018 ESTA conference looking at how we address these questions, and how to justify fieldwork, both in terms of the expenses on strained budgets and in time spent out of school or college. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demonstrations using rotating tanks of fluid can help demystify otherwise counterintuitive behaviors of atmospheric, oceanic, and planetary interior fluid motions. But the expense and complicated assembly of existing rotating table platforms limit their appeal for many schools, especially those below the university level. Here, we introduce Do-It-Yourself Dynamics (DIYnamics), a project developing extremely low-cost rotating tank platforms and accompanying teaching materials. The devices can be assembled in a few minutes from household items, all available for purchase online. Ordering, assembly, and operation instructions are available on the DIYnamics website. Videos using these and other rotating tables to teach specific concepts such as baroclinic instability are available on the DIYnamics YouTube channel—including some in Spanish. The devices, lesson plans, and demonstrations have been successfully piloted at multiple middle schools, in a university course, and at public science outreach events. These uses to date convince us of the DIYnamics materials' pedagogical value for instructors from well-versed university professors to K–12 science teachers with little background in fluid dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geoscience instructors depend upon photos, diagrams, and other visualizations to depict geologic structures and processes that occur over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. This proof-of-concept study tests click-on-diagram (COD) questions, administered using a classroom response system (CRS), as a research tool for identifying spatial misconceptions. First, we propose a categorization of spatial conceptions associated with geoscience concepts. Second, we implemented the COD questions in an undergraduate introductory geology course. Each question was implemented three times: pre-instruction, post-instruction, and at the end of the course to evaluate the stability of students’ conceptual understanding. We classified each instance as (1) a false belief that was easily remediated, (2) a flawed mental model that was not fully transformed, or (3) a robust misconception that persisted despite targeted instruction. Geographic Information System (GIS) software facilitated spatial analysis of students’ answers. The COD data confirmed known misconceptions about Earth’s structure, geologic time, and base level and revealed a novel robust misconception about hot spot formation. Questions with complex spatial attributes were less likely to change following instruction and more likely to be classified as a robust misconception. COD questions provided efficient access to students’ conceptual understanding. CRS-administered COD questions present an opportunity to gather spatial conceptions with large groups of students, immediately, building the knowledge base about students’ misconceptions and providing feedback to guide instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The talent education model of "industry-education integration" has matured in some European countries. Foreign countries promote the integration of production and education in the national macro level and implement school-enterprise cooperation at the micro level. We identified the aims and models of the geological talents training and identified the direction of geology education reform through analysis and discussion. We can take the combination of industry and education at each stage of talent training by the means of making new training programs, reforming teaching contents and methods. The employment of geological undergraduates can be improved effectively by taking a multi-level talent training mode of geology majors with deep integration of production and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The progress of virtual reality (VR), especially over the last decade or two, has been enormous in many domains, and researchers have studied the use of VR in education, training, and simulating scenarios. Virtual reality is a great tool to present phenomena challenging to perform in real-world conditions or to explain in a traditional way of teaching. Geoscience - the study of Earth, is full of topics that could benefit from virtual reality characteristics to assist the learning process and make it engaging and effective. Additionally, user-friendly VR tools (headsets or mobile VR) are accessible to a broader audience than ever in the past due to relatively recent VR development. Virtual reality is broadly defined as a computer-generated environment where users can interact with artificial stimuli in a seemingly natural or physical way by using specific hardware. To understand its benefits for education, educators need to be aware of the aspects that make it advantageous and appealing. Concannon et al. (2019) present immersion, interactivity, and imagination as three basic VR features. The level of immersion is defined by the degree to which a user is either physically or mentally embraced in a virtual environment (Rebelo et al., 2012). Interactivity is the responsiveness and accuracy of user actions when manipulating input hardware (Rebelo et al., 2012). Finally, imagination comes from a user's awareness and belief of being in a virtual environment, despite knowing of being physically in a real environment (Burdea & Coifert, 2003). Various VR setups emphasize those three features differently to achieve the desired goals and outputs. Existing research implies VR is effective on multiple education levels, and students prefer VR to other forms of passive learning (Shakirova et al., 2020; Šašinka et al., 2019; Huang et al., 2010). However, Huang et al. (2010) or Mikropoulos & Natsis (2011) claim that it is necessary to lean on a solid pedagogical baseline to begin with every educational innovation. The use of virtual reality in education is aligned with the approach of constructivism - a learning paradigm claiming humans generate meaning through active, constructive processes (Kavanagh et al., 2017, Huang et al., 2010). Allcoat & von Mühlenen (2018) point out that the use of educational VR might also depend on learning style. They mention in their study a well-documented visual-auditory-kinaesthetic learning style model (Barbe et al., 1988). The model involves three types of learning (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic) that can all be embraced in a virtual environment. Another strong pedagogical motivation for using VR is the possibility of collaboration and gamification features. Collaboration appears to be a common motivator in many systematic review studies regarding VR education (Kavanagh et al., 2017). Gamification features increase student's engagement and enjoyment from the learning experience. Furthermore, it is essential to be familiar with the educational subject field's rationale and differentiate situations where virtual reality brings benefit to more thorough understanding, retention, and engagement and where its benefits are negligible. Not every learning method is suitable for every subject - remembering is better for learning fundamental and specific facts than developing analytical thinking. Accordingly, VR is not equally convenient for every educational field. Its significant advantages addressing educational subject choice are enhanced 3D visualization and the possibility of efficiently demonstrating temporal data. Preference of virtual reality to passive visualization by video is due to a higher level of immersion and interactivity. Therefore, VR might not be as beneficial for learning handcrafts or playing the piano but is much more helpful for dynamic spatio-temporal topics. Geoscience often deals with passive, frontal teaching limits regarding geospatial phenomena and concepts (hypsography, map projections, geomorphological processes, altitudinal pressure change, socioeconomic changes in time, etc.). Those topics can be difficult to imagine only based on 2D figures, and thus student's understanding and engagement decrease. Those could be more effectively demonstrated by different meanings, for example, virtual environments providing immersive and interactive ways of presenting curriculum content to students. In addition, VR can provide visual, audio, or even haptic feedback valuable for education and active learning. Creating a suitable virtual environment can be very costly, demanding, and time-consuming. Despite many studies and research regarding its use not only in Geoscience (e. g. Stojšić et al., 2017), the success of educational VR is not entirely guaranteed yet, and it is still necessary to investigate its potential usefulness for learning. Apart from applied research, there is also a need to identify Geoscience topics that would benefit from virtual environments and compile or at least suggest theoretical background for teaching Geoscience with the help of virtual reality anchored in solid pedagogy and methodology. The proposed research addresses the issues of gaps in VR education in Geoscience and suitable visualization. Systematic reviews of VR in education published so far have focused mainly on education in general. Therefore, the initial part of the research is the current compiling of a systematic review of the use and potential of virtual reality in higher Geoscience education. In parallel, we have performed an exploratory study with the following partial results significant for future research: • The user's expectation of virtual educational environments was far beyond the setting of an experiment. Higher demands of VR engagement were probably partially caused by previous user's experience with VR in the entertainment industry. Therefore, it is necessary to apply other beneficial characteristics of VR to retain engagement and concentration (interactivity, gamification, collaboration, etc.). This assumption was confirmed by the geography teachers as well. • Regarding Geography, it is crucial to carefully choose topics (for example, with cooperation with school teachers) that can be beneficial for teaching in VR. At the same time, the visualization elements and the complexity of sensory inputs in virtual environments should be appropriate for their purpose and should not overwhelm the students. Furthermore, selected topics matching school curricula for their following efficient application are also very suitable. • Users should sufficiently explore and get used to the virtual environment and learn how to use VR devices before participating in a fully immersive and interactive VR experiment. Lack of familiarity with those causes significant delays and unnecessary differences among participants and their experience. • During experiments, it is essential to check on participants to provide as much comfort as possible so that their experience does not negatively influence confusion, nausea, or any discomfort caused by VR devices. The systematic review aims to collect and gather Geoscience and spatial tasks VR experiments, ideally performed in a fully immersive virtual environment. Those research findings will help us identify potential gaps and opportunities in following basic and applied research. Study selection and the whole review report will be guided by the principles of the PRISMA statement and the review guide conducted by Kitchenham et al. (2007). The focus of basic research is going to be on expanding knowledge about educational approaches, methodology, and pedagogical baseline with the use of virtual environments. After the initial results of the systematic review, we plan to verify the outputs of existing research and systematic review and identify some of the Geoscience fields where the VR can be beneficial compared to standard frontal teaching or even learning outdoors. Based on the literature research, systematic review, and expert evaluation (didactic experts, geography teachers), we aim to design, create, and perform experiments with students in fully immersive and interactive virtual educational environments with appropriate Geoscience tasks. We believe those findings might help contribute to creating a more effective and helpful framework for the use of virtual reality in learning and teaching Geoscience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]