Learning Geoscience by Doing Geoscience

Island Geoscience

As the November torrential rains swept over coastal British Columbia, heralding the more reactive winter field season, I began to think about landslide hazards. Geoscientists are routinely asked to try to accurately identify hazard and risk based on limited knowledge. On the surface this appears to be a straight forward task, more realistically however, it involves specialized skills, experienc...

Active Learning in Introductory Geoscience courses

Introduction Most students in STEM disciplines have expressed concern about poor teaching specifically mentioning, dull courses, disengaged instructors, and unsupportive teaching strategies (Seymour and Hewitt, 1997; see also Tobias, 1990; Strenta and others, 1994). Seymour and Hewitt (1997) suggested that a thorough revision of teaching and learning in first year STEM courses would likely impr...

Transactions on Geoscience

Transactions on Geoscience

Zombie Science & Geoscience

Zombies are reanimated, shambling and catatonic corpses of voodoo and video that know not when they are dead. Zombies have analogs in obsolete conjectures–propped up as conventional wisdom–in science and maintained for reasons and methods outside of science (Charlton, 2008). Zombie hypotheses are unproductive (they do not produce useful results) but are not completely sterile (uncreative). They...