Dear Colleagues,
Cathy Manduca, Basil Tikoff, Tim Shipley and I will be convening a session at GSA on Spatial Skills in the Geosciences. The development of spatial thinking skills is essential to success in many geoscience subdisciplines, and therefore in geoscience courses from introductory-level courses through graduate curricula. We hope to bring together a strong and diverse set of research perspectives on the spatial skills used in geoscience and on the instructional methods that facilitate progress from novice to expert spatial thinking. See the session description below.
If you do research in this area, we hope you will submit an abstract to our session. The abstract deadline is August 11, 2009. Please do pass this information along to colleagues, as well.
all the best,
Carol Ormand
Science Education Resource Center
Carleton College
T108. Spatial Skills in the Geosciences
National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT); GSA Geoscience Education Division
Cathryn A. Manduca, Basil Tikoff, Thomas F. Shipley, Carol J. OrmandPapers in this session will describe research on the spatial skills that underpin our ability to learn about geoscience or do geoscience research, as well as educational or technical innovations that develop these skills.