170-9 Recentering Plate Tectonics in the Geosciences Curriculum: An Approach to Integrate Quantification Skills Into a Broad-based Undergraduate Community

Session: Quantitative and Data Analysis Skills in Geoscience Education: Supporting Student, Course, and Program Outcomes, Part I

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The importance of quantitative skills across the range of geoscience disciplines is largely recognized. In spite of this, issues of students' quantitative fluency permeate discussions of our students' learning. There likely are many culprits, but the end result is that many students are neither comfortable working quantitatively nor do they see the value or event the pathway to incorporate math skills in much of their coursework. Although most geoscience programs have explicit mathematics requirements (typically including up to 1-2 semesters of Calculus), since students achieve those requirements at different points in their undergraduate program, the explicit use of such skills in individual courses is hindered. Additionally, the specific math needed/useful for different courses (vectors, algebra, statistics, diffEQ, etc.) may vary. Explicit math usage is generally in upper level geoscience courses, and since such courses are often electives, there may be little commonality in the quantitative experiences of our students in their degree program.  One potential route to mitigate several of theses issues is through a common course (with foundational geoscience value) that naturally utilizes accessible mathematical approaches to advance quantitative learning. A candidate course that we have been using is Plate Tectonics. Such a course can serve as a core, independent course in the curriculum. Although decades ago, as plate tectonics was transforming the Earth Sciences, Plate Tectonics-focused courses were relatively common in curricula, but at present few exist. A common tenet is that plate tectonics is embedded in virtually ALL of our courses, and thus a separate course is redundant. Whether this adequately prepares students to utilize plate tectonics as a framework for their geoscience studies can be debated, but independent of that, Plate Tectonics also provides a vehicle to explicitly and naturally incorporate useful quantitative skills into the curriculum helping students to develop an appreciation of the value of quantification in their studies. Much of plate tectonics is built on quantitive analyses - with the added benefit that much is at a level accessible to early career undergraduate students. Tools and concepts such as vector arithmetic, trigonometry, coordinate systems, functional analysis, and introductory calculus all occur naturally in building the plate tectonic model. Here, we describe and show examples of an implementation of this approach in a mid-level Plate Tectonics class.

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

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