Teaching Geosciences with Museum Collections: Curiosity & Connection

Many students who take an introductory geosciences course in college enroll to fulfill some type of distributive requirement. These students may be apprehensive about taking a college level science course and/or ambivalent about the relevance of the course to their interests and values. An on-campus field trip to the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery provides an unexpected change of venue for students and encourages them to think of the geosciences as interdisciplinary and the associated content and skills as more broadly applicable than they expect. During the visit, students practice their observation and interpretation skills and explore the intersection of art and the geosciences across three broad themes – earth as media, earth as subject, and earth as backdrop or “canvas” through a variety of activities, including slow looking, small group discussions, and facilitated whole class discussions. A post-visit creative project assignment invites students to explore these connections more deeply and individually, using the medium of their choice. This suite of activities engages students with the geosciences by leveraging curiosity and connections and by refreshing group dynamics in positive ways.