Geology and People: Toward New Paradigms for Undergraduate Science Education and Curriculum Dissemination

最近对学生对科学兴趣下降和公众对科学素养提高的需求的关注，使人们认识到特别努力接触非科学专业和未来教师的重要性。解决这一问题的一种可能的方法是开发一些课程，减少对术语和方程的强调，而更多地强调科学中那些有形的、与学生的生活和经历相关的方面。在过去的五年中，我一直在教授一门名为“地质与人”的通识教育课程。本课程的目标是让学生注意到地质因素已经并仍在以多种方式影响社会、文明和文化。课程中的材料来自各个领域，包括历史、经济学、政治学、考古学以及艺术、音乐和文学。我相信我为课程收集的材料可以为非专业和教师的地球科学入门课程的新范式的发展做出有益的贡献。不同组成部分之间的相互联系使得通过文本或读者传播材料变得不合适。为了克服这个问题，我建议在万维网上建立一个因特网站点。该网站将免费提供给任何希望访问有关地质对人们生活影响的材料的人。该网站将以强调信息之间的途径和联系的方式构建。个人可以使用该网站查找信息，并将其整合到自己的课程中。这种方法代表了课程材料传播的新范式。

Recent concern about the declining interest in science on the part of students and the need for increased science literacy on the part of the general public has led to recognition of the importance of making special efforts to reach non-science majors and future teachers. One possible approach to this problem is to develop courses that have a reduced emphasis on terminology and equations and a greater emphasis on those aspects of the science that are tangible and relevant to students' lives and experiences. For the past five years, I have been teaching a General Education course entitled Geology and People. The goal of the course is to draw students' attention to some of the many ways in which geologic factors have been and still are influencing societies, civilizations and cultures. The material in the course is drawn from a variety of fields including history, economics, political science, and archaeology as well as art, music and literature. I believe the material that I have gathered for the course can make a useful contribution to the development of new paradigms for introductory earth science courses for non-majors and teachers. The interconnections between different components make it inappropriate to disseminate the material through a text or a reader. To overcome this problem, I propose to establish an Internet site on the World Wide Web. The Website would be available free to anyone wishing to access the material pertaining to the influences of geology on people's lives.. The Website would be constructed in a way that emphasized pathways and linkages between information. Individuals would use the Website to find information that they could incorporate into their own courses. This approach represents a new paradigm for the dissemination of curricular material.