Initial Publication Date: October 16, 2017

Geoscientific Thinking and Geoscience Majors

This webpage draws on discussion by participants at the 2012 Teaching the Methods of Geoscience Workshop to support faculty in developing students' geoscientific thinking skills. You can browse the entire collection of activities, courses and essays from this workshop.
Geoscience majors need to be able to apply geoscientific thinking to ask and solve questions on their own. When geoscientific thinking is embedded programmatically across the courses that make up the core of the major, students gain opportunities to think like and become part of a community of geoscientists. When determining how and when to address different aspects of geoscientific thinking, it is important to consider using tools appropriately for the problem under study, the developmental level of the students, and the sequencing of information across the program.


See example activities that explicitly incorporate geoscientific thinking for students majoring in the geosciences

Read essays on teaching geoscientific thinking to geoscience majors

Explore course descriptions that address geoscientific thinking for majors in the geosciences

Additional resources