Category Archives: Uncategorized

Freshmen Seminar Students at MSU’s 2015 UURAF

Seven students enrolled in a Freshman Seminar co-taught by Julie Libarkin, Stephen Thomas, and Ryan Claytor presented at MSU’s 2015 University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF). All of the students did amazing jobs conducting, analyzing, and presenting their research; three students won their sections. Congratulations to all presenters and winners! 1. Laura Azouz, USINGContinue reading “Freshmen Seminar Students at MSU’s 2015 UURAF”

Undergraduates at the Fate of the Earth!

Kyler Stanley and Nicole Fisher recently presented at the 2015 Fate of the Earth symposium: Nicole Fisher, Drawings as a Window into Children’s Representations of Insects Kyler Stanley, Measuring Connection to the Environment through Drawing Analysis I am so excited to report that both Kyler and Nicole received Honorable Mentions for their work! Congratulations!

Recent Geocognition Research Lab Publications

Here are a few publications that rolled out just as 2014 was ending – the last few months have been a blur! McNeal, K.S., Libarkin, J.C., Shapiro-Ledley, T., Bardar, E., Haddad, N., Ellins, K., and Dutta, S., 2014, The role of research in on-line curriculum development: The case of EarthLabs climate change and Earth SystemContinue reading “Recent Geocognition Research Lab Publications”

Bring the Earth inside!

Why is Earth System Science so irrelevant in our academic landscape? Academics, funding agencies, the government, politicians, teachers – society generally agrees that science is important. Good people can argue about specific ideas, but the last two centuries of medical, technological, and engineering advancement  – society’s movement from a world of subsistence to a worldContinue reading “Bring the Earth inside!”

Citations and impact? Who says your research is valuable?

I cannot stress enough how much I DISLIKE the focus research universities place on journal impact factors and ISI citation counts. Both of these are really the work of one organization, Thomson Reuters. The Science Citation (and Social Science, etc) indexes offered a great service to researchers before web-based and open access publishing hit theContinue reading “Citations and impact? Who says your research is valuable?”

The need to train Earth Science teachers

As the Next Generation Science Standards move into broader use, many pre-service teacher training programs, as well as programs geared towards teacher professional development, are rethinking how and what they teach. Unfortunately, this rethinking will do little to address a serious issue facing the United States: the lack of qualified Earth Science teachers. Although physics,Continue reading “The need to train Earth Science teachers”