103-3 Atmospheric Science Knowledge Gain Among Pasadena City College Students Completing the CLUE Wearable Air Temperature and Humidity Sensor Curriculum

Session: Balancing Tradition and Innovation: Evolving Geoscience Curricula for a Changing World (Posters)

Poster Booth No.: 3

Presenting Author:

Mark Abolins

Authors:

Abolins, Mark J.¹, Hass, Alisa², Prajapati, Nikita³, Couch, Brock⁴

(1) Middle Tennessee State Univ, Geosciences, Murfreesboro, TN, USA, (2) Middle Tennessee State Univ, Geosciences, Murfreesboro, TN, USA, (3) Pasadena City College, Pasadena, CA, USA, (4) Baltimore County Public Schools, Towson, MD, USA,

Abstract:

During Spring 2025, students in two Pasadena City College (California) introductory-level Physical Geography classes completed the Climate Literacy in Undergraduate Education (CLUE) curriculum. The central innovation of this curriculum is the collection and analysis by individual students of personal air temperature and humidity data. This data is collected with state-of-the-art wearable sensors over a two-day interval. Also, students learn about the atmosphere through 6 presentations (slide decks or short videos) and respond to related assessment prompts. To evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum, students completed pre- and post-surveys. To assess knowledge retention, they also completed an additional survey one month after completing the curriculum. For the two classes combined, there are 46 matching pre-/post-surveys and 41 matching one-month post-surveys. The surveys include 16 prompts about processes controlling ambient global temperatures, the trend in global temperature over time, the consequences of temperature change, and the local effects of microclimates. One-way ANOVA shows that there is a significant difference among the three levels of survey responses at the p<0.01 level. Tukey HSD ad hoc tests show that there is a significant (p<0.05) pre-/-post-survey knowledge gain of 1.5 out of 16 points, and a significant (p<0.01) pre-/one-month post-survey knowledge gain of 1.8 points. However, there is no statistically significant difference at the p<0.05 level between post- and one-month post-surveys. These findings show that the CLUE wearable sensor curriculum results in atmospheric science knowledge gain among community college students, and these students retain knowledge for at least one month after completing the curriculum.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-10793

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