1. Earth’s Environmental Systems at Columbia & Barnard
Stephanie Pfirman, Barnard College
Jim Hays, Kim Kastens, Benno Blumenthal, Bill Ryan, Jim Simpson, Yochanen Kushnir, Bill Menke, Paul Olsen, Kevin Griffin, Martin Visbeck, Arnold Gordon, Martin Stute, Mike Evans, Joy Romanski, Linda Pistolesi,
Columbia University and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Anthony Del Genio and John Knox, NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies
Introduction
The Earth System website provides a challenging learning environment for college students interested in learning how the Earth system works. It supports three courses offered by the Departments of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and Barnard College. The curriculum was developed in 1995 and has been team taught since then, primarily to environmental science and biology majors. Support was provided by the National Science Foundation and Columbia University.
Curriculum Goals
* Engage students in learning about the Earth System
* Involve students in exploring the environment
* Help students learn to draw conclusions from data
* Integrate research and education
Classroom Activities
Lectures: lecture notes are posted on the web, faculty use either overheads or Powerpoint to present key concepts and provide examples
Labs: most labs involve manipulation of data in a computer classroom, with some hands-on activities
Discussion/group activities: discussion of case studies, problems addressed by small groups and then presented to, and discussed by, the entire class
Results
* Environmental majors learn how to access, analyze, and present data
* They learn to draw conclusions from data, and use data to solve problems
* They understand the role of components of the system in overall Earth System functioning
Assessment
Majors value the Earth System sequence – year after year, senior majors rank Climate at the top of all classes taken during their undergraduate career: “The course will dominate your life, but you will learn things you never thought you needed to know (but you do).” posting on underground student evaluation website
Students spend too much time on the computer – we plan to add more complementary hands on activities: “Taught by
a battery of competent researchers, EESC 2100 is
a unique course in that almost all of the course
material, including the Tuesday lab session, is on
the web. Thus, anybody, Columbia student or not,
can access the class lessons and theoretically
learn all the material without ever having left
one`s terminal. This course is not for those who
hate computers! The laboratory exercises, in particular, tend to leave one hating the pale glow of the monitor after two hours of staring at a screen.” posting on underground student evaluation website
Students seem to undervalue the small group problem solving: Although students actively engage in small group problem solving, they don’t seem to consider it an important learning medium and they do not seem to retain what they learned during these sessions. We plan to evaluate this issue in the future.
Earth’s Environmental Systems: Climate
Exploring Upwelling
Exploring Thermohaline Circulation
Earth’s Environmental Systems:
Solid Earth
* What causes upwelling?
* Where do you predict upwelling will occur?
* What data can you use to see if it is happening?
* From what depth does the upwelled water come?
* What are the broader impacts of upwelling?
* What causes circulation of intermediate and deep waters?
* Where are intermediate and deep waters formed?
* What are the broader impacts of thermohaline circulation?
Mediterranean
Overflow
Earth’s Environmental Systems:
Life
Tank Simulation
Adapted from Walter C. Dudley
“A Classroom Demonstration of Thermohaline Circulation”
Journal of Geological Education, 32, , 1984
Drive circulation in the aquarium in three different ways.
Form an intermediate and a deep water mass.
High Salinity Bottom Water