133-2 A Modest Proposal: How Geology Can Survive In an Environmental Science World Coupled to Artificial Intelligence.

Session: Geology Programs in an Environmental Science World

Presenting Author:

Author:

Abstract:

I offer a modest proposal of five pedagogical changes that geology faculty might consider to keep their jobs when enrollments in their courses plummet as more and more students choose environmental science offerings instead. 

First, consider merging mineralogy and petrology, sedimentology and stratigraphy, and structural geology and tectonics into single one semester courses. In these, incorporate practical examples how content proves essential to solve environmental problems ranging from contamination to climate change.. 

Second, in a "reductionist" way, consider teaching no more than ten essential concepts in each course, a process necessary through the merging process. 

Third, consider including courses such as meteorology, hydrogeology, economic geology, engineering geology, and environmental geology as equal partners to traditional geology courses in your core curriculum. 

Fourth, teach scientific principles and tools common to all geology in as many courses as possible (e.g. Gibbs Law’s of Diffusion; field structural analysis, and sedimentological relationships; GIS and Mathematica). Repetion in different subdisciplines leads to true understanding.

Finally, incorporate projects and brief oral examinations to critique student performance. It will be a fool’s errand to prevent students using Ai to cheat on traditional exams and papers. Accept it. Embrace Ai as another powerful tool. Undergraduates know in today’s world they need to learn to DO things practical, and not only learn how to “think,” the objective of liberal arts education initially designed in the absence of both Ai and computers as well.  

My proposal challenges those faculty who are intellectually-set and siloed to collaboratively overhaul their curriculum for the common good, leaving specialization and details to graduate studies. Those departments that choose to not change undergraduate curriculum to fit the times will fail. Those that do may survive and flourish, just like biology departments which did not embrace modern genetics in leiu ot traditional plant identification and counting species in ecological studies. 

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

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-5386

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