Full Text View

Volume 24 Issue 2 (February 2014)

GSA Today

Article, pp. 28–30 | Abstract | PDF (215KB)

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments References Cited
Search GoogleScholar for KE Schmeisser PK Doss Search GSA Today

GROUNDWORK:

The geoscience community’s obligation to its “Last Great Hope”: Do geology graduates understand human transformations of Earth systems?

Kristen E. Schmeisser, Paul K. Doss*

Dept. of Geology and Physics, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, Indiana, 47712, USA.

Students in the senior geology capstone course at the University of Southern Indiana were generally unaware and uninformed of many global-scale human modifications of Earth’s processes (Table 1). Graduating geology students admitted misunderstanding that, without global lifestyle changes, the planet they have studied for the past four years would likely change dramatically during their careers, perhaps becoming Eaarth (McKibben, 2008), essentially a different planet. Textbooks (e.g., Mann and Kump, 2008), lectures, media, and museum and public land exhibits can provide everyone with accurate and timely information about global environmental change. Yet, if these approaches have not adequately informed the general populous on the fundamentals of global change, shouldn’t the geoscience community at least be responsible to inform the next generation of earth scientists about climate change and other anthropogenically aggravated environmental problems?

Ignorance and misunderstandings about environmental transformations amongst geology students are not restricted to senior undergraduates in southern Indiana. Rebich and Gautier (2005) found that upper-division students specifically interested in climate change harbored misconceptions at the beginning of the course that persisted following instruction, including shortwave and longwave radiative processes, changes in temperature, and the greenhouse effect. In the allied field of engineering, Azapagic et al. (2005) found a lack of awareness on a variety of environmental issues, agencies, and sustainability practices. It was also noted that these students believed sustainability to be an issue in the future, rather than of immediate importance. Instruction in geologic thinking, considering differing hypotheses, rates, scales, and variables simultaneously, could do much to enhance understanding of global change (Dodick and Orion, 2003), but simply teaching undergraduates how to think without also introducing them to the spectrum of human transformations will leave them ignorant.

Discussions of human-driven global change, in what many are beginning to refer to as the Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2002), can and should take place in historical geology, mineralogy, petrology, structural geology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, geomorphology, hydrogeology, paleontology, and field courses (Table 1). Although there is no formal accreditation of, or standard for, an undergraduate geology curriculum, there is a generally recognized set of core and elective courses for professional geologists (Williams et al., 2004). And while we have no information about current instances of integrating “humans as geologic agents” across the curriculum, and therefore no assessment of such a curriculum revision, existing core courses can become the vehicle for such integration. Traditional historical geology and paleontology courses, which presumably cover the record of mass extinction events, can include an element investigating the causes and mapping geographical and species distributions of what is now referred to as an anthropogenically induced “sixth extinction” (Barnosky et al., 2011). A traditional sedimentology and stratigraphy course, which presumably covers sedimentation rates and yields, should incorporate an element that quantifies human-induced changes in stream dynamics and fluvial sediment yields (Table 1). Traditional geomorphology and physical geology courses can develop lab exercises that construct spatial data displays of agricultural soil losses, desertification, and dam construction. And traditional courses in hydrogeology and aqueous geochemistry can summarize new sampling results of pharmaceuticals in groundwater, alterations to global cycling of nitrogen, and ocean acidification.

Finally, geology undergraduates need courses directly focused on anthropogenic transformations. Although there is some skepticism about the ability of an undergraduate climate change class to alter individual behavior, students in such a course do make gains in their understanding of global change (e.g., Lombardi and Sinatra, 2012). Undergraduate geology students need incentives to be in the library, in the lab, and in the field pursuing research on global environmental change and Earth processes that have been disrupted by human action. Undergraduate students need to attend and participate in conferences by GSA and other allied science organizations. They need to be reading the literature and the news and understanding the interdisciplinary complexity of global environmental issues. Most importantly, undergraduate students need to be engaging in discussions about what they read and hear. Discussions with their professors, peers, and, ultimately, with their non-expert friends and family will deepen their and the public’s understanding of the problems we face.

GSA President George Davis mentioned in his address that the geoscience community is struggling to impact its future workforce (Davis, 2013). What better way to engage the future of our science than to establish a formal pedagogy about anthropogenic global change with the next generation of geologists? If they are indeed the Last Great Hope, then it is a moral obligation to make certain they understand the global effects of human transformations in Earth processes, and, by providing increased opportunities for communication skills practice, to enable them to inform the general public. We do not advocate a wholesale revision of the geology curriculum to an environmental science curriculum. Humans are now widely recognized as a dominant agent of global change across Earth’s geological systems. If we teach an integrated curriculum on geology, the study of Earth, we have no option but to integrate human transformations across that curriculum.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank Dr. John Geissman, Dr. William Elliott, Dr. Roger LeB. Hooke, and an anonymous reviewer for their thoughtful and helpful reviews of this paper.

References Cited

1. Azapagic, A., Perdan, S., and Shallcross, D., 2005, How much do engineering students know about sustainable development? The findings of an international survey and possible implications for the engineering curriculum: European Journal of Engineering Education, v. 30, p. 1–19, doi: 10.1080/03043790512331313804.
2. Barnosky, A., Matzke, N., Tomiya, S., Wogan, G., Swartz, B., Quental, T., Marshall, C., McGuire, J., Lindsey, E., Maguire, K., Mersey, B., and Ferrer, E., 2011, Has the Earth’s sixth mass extinction already arrived?: Nature, v. 471, p. 51–57, doi: 10.1038/nature09678.
3. Crutzen, P.J., 2002, Geology of mankind: Nature, v. 415, p. 23, doi: 10.1038/415023a.
4. Davis, G.H., 2013, Where our deepest passions intersect the world’s compelling needs: GSA Today, v. 23, no. 1, p. 14–18.
5. Dodick, J., and Orion, N., 2003, Geology as a historical science: Its perception within science and the education system: Science & Education, v. 12, p. 197–211, doi: 10.1023/A:1023096001250.
6. Geissman, J., 2012, The importance of the global professoriate in the geosciences—The students we are teaching, and learn from, today may represent the last great hope: GSA Today, v. 22, no. 1, p. 12–16.
7. Hoegh-Guldberg, O., and Bruno, J.F., 2010, The impact of climate change on the world’s marine ecosystems: Science, v. 328, p. 1523–1528, doi: 10.1126/science.1189930.
8. Hooke, R.L., Martín-Duque, J.F., and Pedraza, J., 2012, Land transformation by humans: A review: GSA Today, v. 22, no. 12, p. 4–10, doi: 10.1130/GSAT151A.1.
9. Lombardi, D., and Sinatra, G.M., 2012, College students’ perceptions about the plausibility of human-induced climate change: Research in Science Education, v. 42, p. 201–217, doi: 10.1007/s11165-010-9196-z.
10. Mann, M.E., and Kump, L.R., 2008, Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming: New York, DK Publishing, 208 p.
11. McKibben, B., 2008, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet: New York, Henry Holt and Co., 253 p.
12. Rabouille, C., Mackenzie, F.T., and Ver, L.M., 2001, Influence of the human perturbation on carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen biogeochemical cycles in the global coastal ocean: Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, v. 65, p. 3615–3641, doi: 10.1016/S0016-7037(01)00760-8.
13. Rebich, R., and Gautier, C., 2005, Concept mapping to reveal prior knowledge and conceptual change in a mock summit course on global climate change: Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 53, p. 355–365.
14. Sharp, J.M., Jr., 2010, The impacts of urbanization on groundwater systems and recharge: AQUAmundi, v. 1, p. 51–56.
15. Syvitski, J.P.M., Kettner, A.J., Overeem, I., Hutton, E.W.H., Hannon, M.T., Brakenridge, G.R., Day, J., Vörösmarty, C., Saito, Y., Giosan, L., and Nicholls, R.J., 2009, Sinking deltas due to human activities: Nature Geoscience, v. 2, p. 681–686, doi: 10.1038/ngeo629.
16. Tilman, D., Fargione, J., Wolff, B., D’Antonio, C., Dobson, A., Howarth, R., Schindler, D., Schlesinger, W.H., Simberloff, D., and Swackhamer, D., 2001, Forecasting agriculturally driven global environmental change: Science, v. 292, p. 281–284, doi: 10.1126/science.1057544.
17. Vitousek, P.M., Mooney, H.A., Lubchenco, J., and Melillo, J.M., 1997, Human domination of Earth’s ecosystems: Science, v. 277, p. 494–499, doi: 10.1126/science.277.5325.494.
18. Wilkinson, B.H., and McElroy, B.J., 2007, The impact of humans on continental erosion and sedimentation: GSA Bulletin, v. 119, p. 140–156, doi: 10.1130/B25899.1.
19. Williams, J., Warner, J., and Warner, S., 2004, Subject-area knowledge measured by scores on the National Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG) Fundamentals Examination and the implications for academic preparation: Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 52, no. 4, p. 374–378.

top