Instructor Story: Sarah Kruse
Using the Evaluating the Health of an Urban Wetland Using Electrical Resistivity IGUaNA module at the University of South Florida
These modules illustrate the physics of the geophysical methods with lots of good images and videos.
The module was assigned as an activity to be completed over the course of one week in a 15-week semester. Students were able to choose among this module, the Seismic Refraction module, and Ground Penetrating Radar module. I advertised it as a week on "Geophysics." I used it in both a fully online class during the pandemic and an in-person class that became effectively hybrid due to repeated quarantine requirements.
Students liked the hands-on work and the real-world applications, and a break from the big-picture introductory geoscience. A few students struggled with Excel. I encouraged students to work together online on the think-pair-share and some did. In the post-pandemic future I hope to follow this up with on-campus opportunities for students to collect their own data, I think that will really strengthen the impact of the module and make them feel like they are actively doing science.
I assigned Units 1 and 5 and a small section of Unit 2 needed to complete Unit 5. I didn't make any changes in assessment techniques. I introduced each method with a very basic 10-minute presentation, but I think the material could be used on its own.