Tag Archives: SCIL 109

Holly White, M.S.

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Congratulations to Holly White for successfully defending her thesis, entitled, “GROUNDWATER EDUCATION: AN INVESTIGATION OF STUDENTS’ USE OF A GROUNDWATER MODELING TOOL”.  For the past two years, Holly has worked as a graduate assistant as part of the Forbes Group, conducting research on K-12 and undergraduate students’ use of the Hydrogeology Challenge to reason about groundwater, as well as serving as a teaching assistant for the SCIL 109 course. Prior to that, Holly was a student in the 109 course and UCARE undergraduate researcher with the E2FEW project.   It has been a pleasure to work with Holly as both project PI and her advisor. Molly’s thesis study was conducted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Science in UNL School of Natural Resources.  Her committee members included Drs. Dave Gosselin and Trenton Franz.

SCIL | AECN| ENVR | GEOG | NRES | 109 Spring 2021

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For the past 4 years, with support from the NSF and now USDA-NIFA, we have developed and offered (annually) a new interdisciplinary, introductory-level undergraduate water course for UNL students – Water in Society (SCIL 109).  The 109 course is highly innovative and touches on many of today’s most pressing water-related challenges in Nebraska and beyond. Now, through through the Big Ten Academic Alliance Online Course Sharing Program and Nebraska Now programs, we are excited to be able to offer an online version of this course to undergraduate students from other institutions and upper-level high school students in spring, 2021.  Through Nebraska Now, current high school students are able to enroll in the course for a significantly reduced tuition rate ($330) and, if they receive a B or better, will be eligible for a $1000 merit-based scholarship to UNL.  Completion of the Water in Society course will also help students meet UNL undergraduate general education requirements (either ACE 4 or 8).  As part of BTTA, undergraduate students at Indiana University, the University of Maryland, Michigan State University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, and Rutgers University-New Brunswick may enroll in this UNL-based course with all associated tuition and fees waived. In spring, 2021, the 109 course will be 100% online and asynchronous, giving students maximum flexibility to complete the course at their own pace from anywhere with support from a fantastic instructional team. 

Please download the 2021 course flyer for more information.

USDA-NIFA funding to support SCIL 109

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New funding from a USDA-NIFA C1 Higher Education Challenge grant (grant no. 2020-70003-30928/project accession no. 1021842) will provide continued support for the WELL project, SCIL 109, and our team’s work in undergraduate education. Over the next 3 years, in collaboration with a team from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette led by Emad Habib, we will develop, implement, and evaluate a new undergraduate curriculum module grounded in an innovative, online, data-driven tool – HydroViz – through which undergraduate students use national water datasets to explore, explain, reason, and make decisions about contemporary socio-hydrological challenges in the Food-Energy-Water-Nexus (FEW-Nexus). The pilot-tested, research-based instructional module will then be disseminated to undergraduate instructors nationwide (Year 3) in the form of faculty development workshops, designed around core tenets of effective undergraduate STEM instruction, to support their implementation of these new resources in their own undergraduate courses. The new USDA-NIFA funding reflects the next phase of our ongoing work supporting undergraduate students socio-hydrologic reasoning through the use of data-driven, computer-based water systems modeling tools as a core feature of the SCIL 109 course. Check out the SNR media release about the new project!

Diane Lally, Ph.D.

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Congratulations to Dr. Diane Lally for successfully defending her dissertation, entitled, “GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION RESEARCH: TRENDS AND APPLICATIONS IN UNDERGRADUATE COURSES“.  For the past five years, Diane has worked as a graduate assistant as part of the Forbes Group, conducting research on undergraduate students’ model-based reasoning and systems thinking about water systems, as well as serving as a teaching assistant for the SCIL 109 course, all part of the WELL project. Diane’s studies, all published, collectively contribute to undergraduate geoscience education about sociohydrologic systems. It has been a pleasure to work with Diane as both project PI and her advisor. Diane’s dissertation was conducted in partial fulfillment of Ph.D. requirements in UNL School of Natural Resources.  Her committee members included Drs. Jenny Dauer, Trenton Franz, and Christine Cutucache.

Invited talk, CUAHSI Fall Cyberseminar Series: Emerging Advances in Hydrologic Education

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In October, I had the opportunity to give an invited talk as part of the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI) Fall, 2019 Cyberseminar Series: Emerging Advances in Hydrologic Education. This presentation – Teaching and Learning about Socio-Hydrological Systems in an Introductory Undergraduate Water Course – provided an overview of empirical findings from WELL project research in the SCIL 109 course over the past 3 years. The seminar provided a great opportunity to engage with water scientists interested in teaching and learning about water and water systems. Many thanks to Dr. Emad Habib, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, for the invitation, and to attendees for the great questions and discussion.

New publication on undergraduate students’ model-based reasoning about water systems

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Congrats to current doctoral student Diane Lally on publication of WELL project research from the SCIL 109 course. In this study, Diane investigated undergraduate students’ use and evaluation of a data-driven, computer-based modeling tools developed by Co-PI, course co-instructor, and SNR colleague Trenton Franz. The study, which compares student outcomes over the 1st and 2nd year of the course, also provides evidence for the impact of ongoing course refinement we have been engaged in over time as part of the project. The study adds to a growing number of publications from our project work with the 109 course, as well as broader efforts within my research group focused on model-based teaching and learning. It’s great to have empirical evidence in support of our team’s hard work on the 109 course over the last 3 years and kudos to Diane for her significant contributions to this work!

Lally, D. & Forbes, C.T. (2019).  Modeling water systems in an introductory undergraduate course: Students’ use and evaluation of data-driven, computer-based models.  International Journal of Science Education, 41(14), 1999-2023.

Diane Lally 2019 NAGT Outstanding Teaching Assistant Awardee

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Congrats to Diane Lally, doctoral student with the WELL project, for being selected by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) for a 2019 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. This award recognizes outstanding teaching assistants in geoscience education. Diane is currently a 4th-year doctoral student who, for the past 3 years, has served as a graduate teaching assistant for the SCIL 109: Water in Society course. Her research focuses on scientific modeling and systems thinking in undergraduate geoscience courses, including work in the 109 course develop and study the impact of course modules in which students use data-driven, computer-based water models to investigate water-related phenomena (e.g., groundwater, regional water balance, etc.). 

Publication on SCIL 109 Water in Society course

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An article describing our NSF-funded SCIL 109 Water in Society course, part of the WELL project, and its first implementation appears in the September/October 2018 issue of the Journal of College Science Teaching.  In the article, we describe core tenets of the course design, present some findings from research conducted during the first year of the course, and share some ongoing questions and challenges associated with the course.  This was a great team effort and it’s fantastic to see this manuscript in print.  We look forward to building on this work with subsequent publications focused on students’ model-based reasoning about socio-hydrologic issues conducted in the context of the course.

Forbes, C.T., Brozovic, N., Franz, T., Lally, D., & Petitt, D. (2018).  Water in Society: An interdisciplinary course to support undergraduate students’ water literacy.  Journal of College Science Teaching, 48(1), 36-42.

2017-2018 E2FEW UCARE Research

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This past year, the E2FEW project has benefited tremendously from contributions of undergraduate research assistants supported through UNL’s Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experience (UCARE) program.  Over the course of the past 12 months, the UCARE program has funded 4 undergraduate students to collect and analyze data, as well as disseminate project activities and research findings, in collaboration with the E2FEW project team.  We are very thankful for the hard work of Holly White, Brooke Mott, Lexy Polivanov, and Saleh Husseini to videorecord CASNR classes, score student work, run stats, and develop posters for sharing our project work with the UNL community.  We look forward to Holly and Brooke continuing their work this year as part of the E2FEW project team and Forbes group!

 

Forbes Group 2018

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It was a big summer of transition in the Forbes team, with team members moving on to next steps and new team members coming on board.  Congrats to newly-minted Ph.D. Tina Vo who will begin a tenure-track position at UNLV as an Assistant Professor of Science Education in August.  Dante Cisterna, UnICORN project postdoc, is also starting a new position at ETS in July.  Destini Petitt completed her M.S. in the School of Natural Resources and will begin doctoral studies in the Dept. of Geography and Earth Sciences at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.  Ashley (McKenzie) Sutter (formerly Peterson), will leave us for a second time to return to her position with USDA.  And, finally, Florian Böschl, doctoral student at the University of Leipzig in Germany, will return home after a summer in Lincoln.  We wish them all the best!

Joining the team are two new SNR doctoral students, Amie Sommers and Kim Carroll-Steward, undergraduate research assistant Brooke Mott, and incoming postdoctoral researcher Ranu Roy, who recently completed her Ph.D. at Indiana University.  They join a fantastic continuing group of team members, including SNR doctoral student Diane Lally, postdoc Devarati Bhattacharya, and undergraduate research assistants Holly White, Isabella Catalano, and Nancy Theodor.