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SedEdu: developing and testing a suite of computer-based interactive educational activities for introductory sedimentology and stratigraphy courses
  • Andrew Moodie,
  • Brady Foreman
Andrew Moodie
Rice University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Brady Foreman
University of Minnesota Twin Cities
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Abstract

We have developed a suite of computer-based interactive educational activities for introductory sedimentology and stratigraphy courses, called SedEdu. Specifically, SedEdu is a free and open-source Python framework through which any contributor can easily and seamlessly integrate their own “module” into the suite for distribution. In this way, SedEdu is a community-built tool written by sedimentology and stratigraphy educators for sedimentology and stratigraphy educators. The so-called modules are coupled with “activities” that guide students through a concept, incrementally introducing components of the subject, and testing for understanding and retention throughout the activity. For example, one module (“rivers2stratigraphy”) illustrates the concept of the construction of fluvial stratigraphy through a laterally migrating river that leaves behind a channel-sand body, which is subsided into a stratigraphic profile. The module allows students to modulate system properties like water discharge, subsidence rate, and avulsion timescale, and observe changes in the developed stratigraphic record. At one point during an activity accompanying this module, students are guided to decrease the basin subsidence rate, and then to measure (using in-activity tools) the change in sand-body stacking patterns before and after the subsidence change. A small-scale test was conducted, wherein the SedEdu rivers2stratigraphy module was used as a curriculum component. In the test, one section of an undergraduate sedimentology and stratigraphy class was taught using traditional lecture materials, and the other used the module on student computers. The efficacy of this style of technology-enabled active learning was tested through a multivariate assessment of student’s understanding of fluvial stratigraphy construction.