Teaching physics in context for Environmental Science and Policy majors:

In 2018-19, I was tasked with creating a new “Earth System Physics” class for our new Environmental Science and Policy (ENSP) major. This class formed part of a 3-quarter introductory sequence for ENSP majors – Earth System Chemistry/Biology/Physics – to introduce the fundamental scientific principles of these disciplines in contexts that are relevant to our students’ interests and future careers. This approach has seen success in the life sciences (Crouch et al 2018) and research shows that helping students connect class content to their interests increases attention and learning (Haussler and Hoffman 2002). In spring 2023 I carried out a pre and post survey of students in the Earth System Physics class using the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) (Adams et al 2006), with some additional questions to assess students’ prior physics experience and perceptions of the importance of physics and quantitative problem solving to their degree and future career.

Effects of general education classes on students’ scientific literacy

This work was led by Prof Justin Shaffer along with Dr Kameryn Denaro. We did pre/post assessments of student scientific literacy using questions taken from the established TOSLS (Test of Scientific Literacy Skills) instrument. Several different classes were involved in this study. We found little direct change in students’ scientific literacy skills over individual quarters, although students did gain scientific knowledge related to the classes they took. Instead we observed patterns of increasing scientific literacy with overall literacy (based on SAT scores) and on year of study. The results of this work were published in 2019 in CBE Life Science Education: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6755321/

I also presented some initial results specific to my classes at the Earth Educator’s Rendezvous in 2015: