Incorporating Quantitative Analysis and Digital Database Use in Structure and Tectonics Research and Teaching: Proposal for a Summer School

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Meeting society’s tectonics-related challenges will require that the next generation of professional geologist to be far more quantitatively and computationally literate than past generations. The ever-increasing amount of digital geologic data available via the internet, such as digital elevation models, earthquake data, digital geological data (e.g., StraboSpot digital data system), etc., is transforming the science. Quantitative skills are critical for all aspects of research in the 21st century, as is basic facility in data manipulation. To address this demand, we need to develop high-quality instructional material on quantitative reasoning, computer modeling, data analysis, and digital mapping. The grant supports two seven-day summer schools, to be taught in summer 2024 and 2025. The summer schools will focus on teaching quantitative methods and computing skills in structural geology and tectonics. The target audience are junior faculty, as the instructors aim to “teach the teachers”, although post-doctoral fellows and advanced graduate students will also be included. The same material presented in the summer schools will be subsequently covered in publicly available internet videos, to further disseminate the results. This proposal is aimed at facilitating participation, by an entire scientific community, in the digital revolution taking place in the sciences and throughout society. The principal investigator and associated faculty will offer field courses during two consecutive summers, following a summer of preparation. Summer School Year 1 (2024) will be focused on vector and linear algebra, and Summer School Year 2 (2025) will be focused on spatial statistics. Attendees will learn by doing, rather than by passively listening, with educational activities that involve collection and analysis of their own data at a field location in eastern California. The mobile technologies to be used by the participants are improving efficiencies for field mapping, and will enhance their knowledge of how to maximize the learning of new mobile methods and field strategies that will be the norm for the next generation of professional geoscientists. Two webinars that will run the following summer and videos of the recorded lectures will allow broad dissemination of the materials beyond the participants of the summer school. The grant also funds two graduate students to be teaching assistants for these summer schools, thus facilitating their professional development in an important STEM discipline relevant to societal needs.  This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.