Geology, Resources and Environment of Latin America: Incorporating Earth Systems Science Education in an Undergraduate Science Service Course Intended for Hispanic Students

Journal of Geoscience Education, May 2006 by Pujana, Ignacio, Stern, Robert J, Ledbetter, Cynthia

ABSTRACT

With NSF funding, we have developed, taught, and evaluated a new lower-division science course for non-science majors, entitled "Geology, Resources, and Environment of Latin America" (GRELA). GRELA is intended to attract Hispanic undergraduates to science and to increase awareness among non-Hispanic students about challenges facing our neighbors to the south. GRELA is an interdisciplinary exploration of how the physical and biological environments of Mexico, Central America, and South America have influenced the people who live there. The course consists of 22 lectures in four modules (Background; Minerals; Energy and Natural Hazards, and Water and the Environment). Presentation of ESS topics dominates the last part of the class and includes lectures on El Ni�o, glaciers, the Amazon, rain forests, and coral reefs; a final set of lectures focuses on challenges facing the US and Mexico over shared water resources. Grades are based on two mid-term exams, a final exam and a report developed in partnership with correspondents in Latin American universities. Evaluations indicate this course positively impacts student interest in science, although some of the favorable comments may result from small class size. We encourage adaptation of our course materials at other community colleges and universities and will share these with other instructors on request.

INTRODUCTION

Hispanics comprise 14% of the U.S. population and are, by far, the most rapidly growing ethnic group (Bureau, 2005). This increase results in a growing pool of university-age Hispanic youths who need to oecome scientifically literate and who could be attracted to science. A complementary challenge is to educate non-Hispanic students about our neighbors to the south. We are particularly motivated to change the attitude that many undergraduates have; that while science may be important for public health and economic progress, it is not relevant to them in their daily lives. Realizing these objectives requires innovative curriculum development, obtaining timely feedback from participating students, and broad dissemination of strategies and materials. Beyond this, we recognize the importance of Latin American people and natural resources to the healthy functioning of US government, society, and economy, and believe that university curricula should reflect this to a greater extent than is now the case.

In this spirit, we have developed and taught a new course entitled "Geology, Resources, and Environment of Latin America" (GRELA). GRELA provides an overview of the natural environment of Latin America, how the environment and natural resources have affected civilizations in the region and how humans are impacting this environment. This also provides an opportunity to present Earth System Science Education (ESSE) components in a context that reaches a different audience.

We adopted the general strategy of Tewksbury (1995), who developed a course on African geology to attract African American students. Such a strategy applied to Latin America and Hispanic students seems promising because we expect that many Hispanics are interested in issues affecting their cultural homelands. This strategy is further encouraged because Hispanics in the US generally have strong cultural traditions, such as keeping the homeland language, food and music even after generations of living in a predominantly Anglo culture. We are especially sensitive to these issues in our state, where we teach at U Texas at Dallas, a public university with about 15,000 students. With funding from the National Science Foundation, we developed a semester-long course entitled "Geology, Resources, and Environment of Latin America" and taught it for the past three years (Fall semester 2003, 2004, 2005); only the results from the first 2 years are presented here. GRELA is a 3-credit 'service course' approved to satisfy part of UTD's 9-hour undergraduate core curriculum science requirement, and is aimed at lower division undergraduates, especially students who are not science majors. It is also the only course taught at our university that concentrates on Latin America.

This article outlines the course and its assessment.

WHAT IS LATIN AMERICA?

The term "Latin America" was originally coined by French geographers to emphasize the similar roots of the French and Spanish languages; this was motivated to reduce tensions between Mexicans and the French during their occupation of Mexico (1862-1867). It is today used to differentiate between regions in the New World where English and Romance (Latin-based) languages are spoken (Clawson, 2004). Latin America can be further divided by language and location into Ibero-America (Spanish and Portuguese speaking) portions of Central and South America and the polyglot (Spanish, French, Dutch, and English speaking) Cariobean region (Greater and Lesser Antilles, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana). By this definition, some parts of the US and Canada could also be considered part of Latin America, especially the SW USA, southern Florida, Louisiana, and Quebec. By common usage however, Latin America is accepted to be that part of the New World that lies south of the United States of America, which is how we define the GRELA region of interest.