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What is Urban Geoscience Education?

November 2004
Journal of Geoscience Education 52(5):405-406

DOI:10.5408/1089-9995-52.5.405

Authors:

Middle Tennessee State University

INTRODUCTION To obtain an answer to the titular question, I encouraged geoscientists to share their urban educational experiences at the 2002 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting and collected their responses in this volume. These responses reveal a group united by their interest in making geoscience more inclusive but amazingly varied in nearly every other way. Their common interest manifests itself in two central beliefs: (T) that urban geoscience education more effectively serves urban residents (slightly more than 80% of the American population) and (2) that urban education encourages minority participation in the geosciences. The first belief reflects constructivist notions about the importance of the learner's environment and previous experiences, and the second belief reflects the desire to correct chronically low levels of minority involvement in the geosciences. These convictions spawned educational programs serving many different kinds of learners. Educators developed unique curricula to meet the needs of each audience, but most curricula incorporate content associated with the built environment. I list audience characteristics and examples of urban content in Tables 1A and 1B and provide summaries in the following paragraphs. AUDIENCE Urban geoscience education served many different kinds of learners (Tables IA and IB). Although most programs targeted an audience with a specific level of educational experience (e.g., elementary school students) at a specific location (e.g., Syracuse, NY), audience characteristics varied greatly from one program to another: * Participants included elementary, middle, and high school students, undergraduates (both majors and non-majors), K-12 teachers (both pre-service and in-service), graduate students, realtors, and community members. Most participants were pre-college students or K-12 teachers. * At least three programs served populations with substantial numbers of African American - (O'Connell et al. and Harnik and Ross), Hispanic (Birnbaum, O'Connell et al., and Harnik and Ross), and Asian American (Harnik and Ross) students. (Most manuscripts do not explicitly describe audience demographics.) * Audiences were drawn from every corner of the nation except the Pacific Northwest and Florida and resided in cities varying greatly in population. These cities included the nation's largest combined metropolitan area (New York City, NY-NJ-CT-PA), other metropolitan areas containing populations of over one million, and communities as small as Ithaca, NY (population: 96,501). Most manuscripts describe programs conducted in metropolitan areas containing between 1.1 and 2.6 million people. As illustrated by the preceding examples, urban geoscience education served learners with different levels of educational experience, some programs focused on minority learners, and program participants lived in cities both big and small. These varied audiences demonstrate the inclusiyeness of urban geoscience education. …

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INTRODUCTION

To obtain an answer to the titular question, I encouraged

geoscientists to share their urban educational

experiences at the 2002 Geological Society of America

Annual Meeting and collected their responses in this

volume. These responses reveal a group united by their

interest in making geoscience more inclusive but

amazingly varied in nearly every other way. Their

common interest manifests itself in two central beliefs:

(1) that urban geoscience education more effectively

serves urban residents (slightly more than 80% of the

American population) and (2) that urban education

encourages minority participation in the geosciences.

The first belief reflects constructivist notions about the

importance of the learner’s environment and previous

experiences, and the second belief reflects the desire to

correct chronically low levels of minority involvement in

the geosciences. These convictions spawned educational

programs serving many different kinds of learners.

Educators developed unique curricula to meet the needs

of each audience, but most curricula incorporate content

associated with the built environment. I list audience

characteristics and examples of urban content in Tables

1A and 1B and provide summaries in the following

paragraphs.

AUDIENCE

Urban geoscience education served many different kinds

of learners (Tables 1A and 1B). Although most programs

targeted an audience with a specific level of educational

experience (e.g., elementary school students) at a specific

location (e.g., Syracuse, NY), audience characteristics

varied greatly from one program to another:

•Participants included elementary, middle, and high

school students, undergraduates (both majors and

non-majors), K-12 teachers (both pre-service and

in-service), graduate students, realtors, and

community members. Most participants were

pre-college students or K-12 teachers.

•At least three programs served populations with

substantial numbers of African American

(O’Connell et al. and Harnik and Ross), Hispanic

(Birnbaum, O’Connell et al., and Harnik and Ross),

and Asian American (Harnik and Ross) students.

(Most manuscripts do not explicitly describe

audience demographics.)

•Audiences were drawn from every corner of the

nation except the Pacific Northwest and Florida and

resided in cities varying greatly in population. These

cities included the nation’s largest combined

metropolitan area (New York City, NY-NJ-CT-PA),

other metropolitan areas containing populations of

over one million, and communities as small as

Ithaca, NY (population: 96,501). Most manuscripts

describe programs conducted in metropolitan areas

containing between 1.1 and 2.6 million people.

As illustrated by the preceding examples, urban

geoscience education served learners with different

levels of educational experience, some programs focused

on minority learners, and program participants lived in

cities both big and small. These varied audiences

demonstrate the inclusiveness of urban geoscience

education. However, curricula developed for different

audiences differ in many particulars. What do these

curricula share?

CONTENT

Most urban geoscience curricula include content

associated with the built environment (Tables 1A and 1B)

although one notable exception eschews urban content

altogether. Some content is organized around themes

that are unique to the largest cities, but much content is

explicitly suburban. Examples follow:

•A good example of a theme unique to the largest

cities is the impact of geology on the construction of

early Twentieth Century skyscrapers (Haddad).

•Much explicitly suburban material addresses

human-environment interactions in urbanizing

areas. For example, one curriculum focuses on the

impact of urbanization on lake terraces and other

natural records of Earth history (geoantiquities) in

the Salt Lake City, UT area (Chan and Atwood;

Atwood et al.), and another curriculum was a direct

outgrowth of regional planning workshops in the

rapidly urbanizing Nashville, TN area (Abolins).

•The Devonian Seas curriculum (Harnik and Ross)

focuses on fossils instead of the built environment.

According to the authors, an inquiry-based

pedagogy contributed greatly to the success of this

curriculum. This example suggests that, in some

cases, good urban geoscience education is simply

good geoscience education.

The above examples show that curricula described in this

volume include content relevant to both big city and

suburban learners.

CONCLUSION

Although urban geoscience education programs serve

many different kinds of learners, most curricula include

content focusing on the built environment.

Consequently, practitioners of urban geoscience

education are interested in (1) this kind of content and (2)

ways to use this content to meet the needs of different

audiences. The manuscripts in this volume describe

several case studies addressing these interests. Taken

together, urban geoscience education programs utilized

content relevant to both big city and suburban learners

and served audiences with different levels of educational