Field learning experiences reach tens of thousands of undergraduate students annually, constituting their importance as components of undergraduate education and potential pathways for STEM education. Reports and planning efforts by national entities have highlighted the need to ground undergraduate field learning experiences in evidence-based…

Understanding the rate at which STEM faculty move from traditional, lecture-intensive teaching practices to more effective, student-centered practices and the institutional conditions that favor this shift are crucial for supporting faculty change. This study investigated the instructional practices of biology, chemistry, and physics faculty at…

Quantitative literacy is a foundational component of success in STEM disciplines and in life. Quantitative concepts and data-rich activities in undergraduate geoscience courses can strengthen geoscience majors' understanding of geologic phenomena and prepare them for future careers and graduate school, and provide real-world context to apply…

Community colleges are a major entry point for many students to post-secondary education, particularly for minority, first-generation, low-income, and older students. A range of factors including transfer-readiness, curricular alignment, financial barriers, and transfer guidance, influence successful transfer between two-year colleges (2YCs) and…

This first analysis of aggregated data from the Kahoot! game-based player response system demonstrates that it can provide assessments of overall US student polar knowledge and identifies differences in polar knowledge across several states. A kahoot online quiz on polar topics recorded over 25,000 United States teacher-hosted classroom players…

The need for geoscience students to develop a quantitative skillset is ever increasing. However, this can be difficult to implement in university-style lecture courses in a way that is both manageable for the instructor and does not involve lengthy, potentially repetitive, question sheets for the students. Here, a method for teaching dimensional…

This qualitative study sought to determine undergraduate students' beliefs about their motivations for pursuing, and challenges to completing, geoscience majors in a large public university. Eighteen undergraduate students participated in the study and were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. In addressing the study's research…

In answer to calls for research about professional change, this study addressed the question: What is involved in college science faculty readiness for change in instructional practice? The setting was a professional development experience in oceanography/marine science and paleoclimatology among 32 faculty from 2- and 4-year colleges. Ten of the…

Most of the research on student understanding of evolution by natural selection has focused on undergraduate biology courses for science majors. However, the majority of undergraduates in the United States will not enroll in a biology course for majors. In this study, we identify the extent of natural selection understanding that students acquire…

The future viability of the geosciences is challenged, since as a community we continue to lack demographic diversity representative of the wider population. Fundamentally, dominant cultural, historical, and socioeconomic factors contribute to the lack of diversity and those factors typically change slowly over generations. Proposals for more…

The public's understanding of climate change has been plagued by poor communication, misinformation, and disinformation. Fortunately, there is a growing body of research on effective climate change communication strategies. A popular element of science communication is documentary film. Educational films produced for museums, planetariums, and…

Polar research plays a vital role in developing our understanding of Earth's climate system. It is intrinsically interdisciplinary, lending itself to integration into existing undergraduate courses. Here we explore introducing undergraduates to polar research through computational guided inquiry (CGI) modules taught in a variety of courses and…

Outreach and communication with the public have substantial value in polar research, in which studies often find changes of global importance that are happening far out of sight from the majority of people living at lower latitudes. Seeking evidence on the effectiveness of outreach programs, the U.S. National Science Foundation sponsored…

We describe findings from an exploratory study on Greenlandic and Canadian preservice teachers' (PSTs') views on climate change teaching and teacher education programs. Greenland and Canada are experiencing more rapid warming than the global average. Climate resilience is thus of great importance and climate change needs to be taught to foster…

As the impacts of climate change grow, we need better ways to raise awareness and motivate action. Here we assess the effectiveness of an Arctic climate change card game in comparison with the more conventional approach of reading an illustrated article. In-person assessments with control/reading and treatment/game groups (N = 41), were followed…