The power of moving sediment: integrating experimental sedimentology into the undergraduate geoscience curriculum

学科：地质学（42）基于麻省理工学院和威斯康星大学欧克莱尔分校开发的成功教学模式，该项目将水槽实验室整合到威诺纳州立大学（WSU）本科课程的教学中。该实验室通过对沉积学的实验研究，帮助学生更好地理解复杂的地质现象。WSU学生在实验室中模拟各种表面过程，并在探索自己设计的研究问题时将实验与实地研究联系起来。为了使这个项目的结果提供给更广泛的地质界，正在制作实验运行的短片，这些短片将登载在一个新的项目网站上，使这些短片可以通过地理资源和其他渠道获得。视频内容和复杂性针对K-16年级不同的学习者水平。该项目利用常设机构社区外展计划吸引当地K-12学生到该设施，向年轻学生介绍积极的科学实验。社区成员可以在不用于学生实验的时候通过远程控制访问管道进行交互。这种与公众一起动手的方法旨在增加被科学职业吸引的本科生的数量。增加地球科学专业的女性人数是一个具体的项目目标。在K-12阶段，该项目应该激励更多的学生从事STEM职业，并提高公众对他们所居住的河流社区的认识。

Discipline: Geology (42)Based on successful instructional models developed at MIT and Univ. Wisconsin-Eau Claire, this project is integrating a flume laboratory into instruction throughout the undergraduate curriculum at Winona State University (WSU). The laboratory helps students better visualize complex geologic phenomena through the experimental examination of sedimentology. WSU students model a variety of surficial processes in the laboratory and connect their experiments with field studies as they explore research questions of their own design. To make the results of the project available to the broader geological community, short videos are being prepared of experimental runs, and these videos will be posted to a new project website, making them available through DLESE and other venues. Video content and complexity are targeted as appropriate to different learner levels throughout grades K-16. A standing institutional community outreach program is being leveraged by this project to draw local K-12 students to the facility, introducing younger students to active scientific experimentation. Community members can interact with the ducts via remote control access at times when they are not in use for student experiments. This hands-on approach with the general public is intended to increase the numbers of undergraduate students attracted to careers in science. Increasing the numbers of females in geoscience majors is a specific project goal. At the K-12 level, the project should inspire more students to pursue STEM careers, and to increase public awareness of the river community in which they live.