As an interdisciplinary geoscientist teaching in an interdisciplinary department, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of colleagues in other departments at Knox. I particularly enjoy teaching within immersive and place-based learning environments. Some of my teaching-centered projects, aside from student research, are highlighted below.
Indigenous Representation and Cultural Identity in Illinois
This summer immersion program funded by an NEH grant to Knox College investigated Indigenous representation at museums and archaeological sites in Illinois within the context of settler colonialism and historic removal of Indigenous populations. The students produced the Story Map below:
Environmental Geology
One of my favorite introductory courses to teach, this class covers the basics of physical geology with a focus on natural disasters and human relationships with geologic timeframes. This course was recently highlighted in video:
Green Oaks Term
Every-other spring term, Knox offers an immersive term on our field station, known as Green Oaks. Students live and take courses together, learning about the land they inhabit and what it takes to develop a community that works together. The 2022 “Oakies”, as the students are known, documented their experience in a Story Map:
Introduction to Geographic Information Systems
This course introduces students to the basics of map-making and GIS, specifically ESRI’s ArcGIS Pro software. A recent course project working with the Knox Abolition Lab had students map examples of spatial justice issues:
Introduction to Environmental Studies
This course is a requirement for all majors and minors in Environmental Studies, and introduces students to climate change and threats to biodiversity via human action. While projects differ from term to term, recent students focused on lead as an environmental hazard in an Abolition Lab coordinated web project: