EOS2.1

Many issues related to contemporary climate change (e.g. reduced crop yield and diminishing water reservoirs) cannot be effectively addressed without improving the understanding of the climate system in future scientists, communicators and policy makers. Many higher education climate courses, however, are overspecialised, inaccessible and didactically inflexible, making it difficult to transfer them to other learning settings or instructors. INTEGRATE (Integrated Teaching of Atmospheric Science, Technical Skills and Empirical Methods) is an EGU-supported, open-access teaching package that is designed to remove barriers for teaching climate science in a higher education setting. The teaching package is self-contained and covers basic concepts of physical climatology, as well as programming and empirical analysis needed to work with climate datasets. The teaching approach includes hands-on activities for collecting and analysing atmospheric data, such as assembling and operating simple weather stations with affordable hardware. The course material, including source code, instructions, and figures, is available as a git repository (https://github.com/sebastian-mutz/integrate) and compiles into a complete course website (e.g. integrate.mutz.science). While the course was originally designed and tested as a series of lectures and computer exercises for BSc and MSc level university students, it has been revised to allow for adaptation to different teaching and learning levels and strategies in higher education. In this presentation, we introduce the course website and give examples of course content that can be used to instill a deeper understanding of theoretical and practical knowledge of climate science in university students.

How to cite: Mutz, S. G., Boateng, D., and Mohadjer, S.: INTEGRATE: A higher-education teaching package for climate science, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-864, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-864, 2022.

The analysis of hydro-morphodynamic processes in river ecosystems involves modeling complex natural processes based on continuously growing data sets. Typical tools involved in such analyses embrace numerical models, GIS software, and high-level programming languages. Teaching the application of these tools is part of many environmental and geoscience-oriented study courses though the tool development partly roots in other disciplines, such as civil or software engineering. Thus, the holistic understanding of tools for hydro-morphological modeling and assessment of river ecosystems is an interdisciplinary challenge that is often solved in practice through multi-institutional collaboration. Yet, even public academic institutions tend to teach the usage of proprietary software that is embedded in a chain of even more, often expensive, proprietary software applications. In addition, the teaching of software refers to a presently up-to-date version, and its application can quickly become outdated.

To address the challenge of teaching interdisciplinary tools for modeling and analyzing river ecosystems, we have created an online eBook (available at https://hydro-informatics.com) that exclusively explains the use of open-source and open-access software. The eBook goes beyond our institutional teaching, and we do our best to keep the descriptions of software applications up-to-date. In addition, we offer more than IT assistance through detailed explanations of physical processes and mathematical equations involved in river ecosystem modeling. For instance, we explain geomorphological principles and the development of equations for calculating fluvial sediment transport. In cross-disciplinary application examples, we also feature ecohydraulic principles of river landscape analysis, for example, to calculate habitat suitability based on two-dimensional numerical model outputs. To this end, we explain and demonstrate the installation and use of the high-level programming language Python, the numerical modeling software BASEMENT and TELEMAC, the usage of git and Markdown, and the geospatial software QGIS on common operating systems (including and with preference: Linux). Ultimately, we also offer sample data sets, self-learning checks, exercises, and troubleshooting solutions to keep the barrier to free teaching as low as possible.

How to cite: Schwindt, S. and Scolari, F.: A new Educational Open-source eBook for Modeling River Hydro-morphodynamics, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-9526, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-9526, 2022.

It’s been almost 30 years since I started with MATLAB, coming from FORTRAN77, and at a time when Python was still in its infancy and 20 years before Julia was developed. However, I recognize the popularity of Python, including the growing prevalence of Julia, and find that a bilingual and trilingual version of my MATLAB-based books and my courses could be beneficial. I’ve been learning Python for a few months now, with the goal of writing a Python version of my first book, MATLAB Recipes for Earth Sciences, 5th Edition (Springer 2021). In the meantime, almost all chapters of the book, with topics such as time series analysis, signal processing, digital terrain analysis and image processing, have been translated from MATLAB into Python, some also into Julia. Using the trilingual code in a master's course shows an unexpected but extremely positive side effect: students get away from a particular software or programming language, and focus instead on the method they want to implement. In addition, solutions often use mixtures of programming languages, exploiting the advantages of each. This is an advantage, also helps a lot to produce sustainable and reproducible code. Furthermore, this approach makes the students fit for a job in academia or industry, where other software tools are used than the ones we use in class. Here, I will share my experiences with courses on data analysis in earth sciences with 2–3 programming languages and with translating a data analysis book from one to another programming language.

How to cite: Trauth, M. H.: The Recipes for Earth Sciences Go Trilingual: MATLAB, Python and Julia, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-2165, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-2165, 2022.

Students on the geospatial MSc programmes start with very varied levels of maths experience/skills. The students all need to become capable with all the maths concepts needed for the degree programme, but without boring those who can already do them. The Numbas software is freely available, open source and very mathematically capable (https://www.numbas.org.uk/). It facilitates creation of questions and exams which are randomizable, so students can repeat them many times for practice as needed. The randomizable nature of the questions can also be helpful for remote learning, as everyone has a test with different answers. This work describes how the tests and learning material have been arranged within the module to encourage timely self-learning of maths topics linked to geospatial themes, with initial low stakes assessments followed by higher stakes summative assessment, and discusses experiences with integrating Numbas over the last four years.  

How to cite: Petrie, E.: Strategies for building maths skills in a geospatial MSc class using the web based e-assessment software Numbas, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-2403, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-2403, 2022.

GETSI (GEodesy Tools for Societal Issues) is a US National Science Foundation-funded program that develops, tests, and disseminates data-rich and societally relevant curriculum for undergraduate field and classroom teaching. GETSI has published 13 modules (~2-3 weeks of class time each) co-authored by faculty at varied colleges and universities (serc.carleton.edu/getsi). The dissemination plan for the 2020-21 academic year was originally entirely in-person workshops. When the COVID19 pandemic necessitated the postponement and/or cancellation of essentially all face-to-face activities, the project pivoted to an online dissemination model for the 2020-21 academic year and convened a GETSI Virtual Mini Short Course Series and a virtual short course: Teaching in the field with SfM and RTK GPS/GNSS.

The Virtual Mini Short Course Series was October 2020-April 2021 and included 9 mini-courses. Unlike a webinar, the majority of the mini-course consisted of time for participants to work individually and collaboratively through portions of the student exercises, discuss teaching ideas, and develop a plan for implementation. The series attracted a wider range of participants from a broader range of institutions than many in-person events. Participants could choose to attend one or more of the mini-courses, depending on their area(s) of interest. Each 2-hour mini-course, co-led by a GETSI PI and module co-author(s), highlighted a different GETSI module and offered participants a small stipend for completing an implementation plan for using GETSI materials in their classroom. We used a variety of active learning strategies during the mini courses, including think-pair-shares, polling, report-outs, gallery tours, and jigsaws.

The two virtual short courses "Teaching in the Field with SfM and GPS" brought together graduate students and college/university faculty into an online learning cohort. Each institutional team received an RTK GPS receiver pair to practice with for several weeks and the cohort worked through similar field tasks separately, while periodically reconvening online to share challenges and accomplishments.

The lessons learned from this unanticipated shift to virtual professional development have implications moving forward for designing high-quality, interactive professional development for the whole STEM community.

How to cite: Pratt-Sitaula, B., Walker, B., Douglas, B., Crosby, B., and Charlevoix, D.: Finding the Silver Lining: Benefits and lessons learned from pivot to virtual short courses for instructor professional development for classroom and field geoscience, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-3298, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-3298, 2022.

The Pyxis project is a sounding rocket developed by Skyward Experimental Rocketry from Politecnico di Milano, with the ultimate goal of participating in the European Rocketry Challenge in October 2022. The rocket, which will be the most advanced Italian sounding rocket ever developed by university students, will give the opportunity to hold a payload of 1U inside the nosecone. After lift-off, the rocket will rapidly reach the apogee at 3000 meters, where the nosecone with the payload bay will be ejected and recovered independently from the rocket thanks to an autonomous guided parafoil. For the payload development the team is collaborating with the students at the Scientific High School “Cigna-Baruffi-Garelli” – Mondovì, as they are creating a sensing platform, through the use of Blebricks sensors (IoT sensors), capable of detecting enviromental data such as pressure, temperature and quality of the air, storing it on board for post-flight analysis. 
The students at “Cigna-Baruffi-Garelli” are already involved also in another STEM experience with hot air/stratospheric balloons called infoBalloons, presented last year at EGU 2021 (Tealdi, P., Innocenti, F., and Aimo, G. (.: infoBalloons: an Italian High School educational self-made budget friendly STEM experience with hot air/stratospheric balloons, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-13420, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-13420, 2021). infoBalloons 2.0 is a selected Sounding Balloon (SB) Experiments in the 2nd HEMERA Call for Proposals (HEMERA H2020. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and Innovation programme under grant agreement No 730970).
An added value in the Pyxis project is the participation as partners of LB Space with Luciano Battocchio (retired Space Engineer - Exomars Parachute Program Manager), Bleb Technology with Fabrizio Innocenti (CEO),  John Aimo Balloons with Giovanni (John) Aimo. 

How to cite: Tealdi, P., Battocchio, L., Innocenti, F., Aimo, G. (., Corallo, F., Donghi, N., Colombo, M., Florio, N., Nidasio, A., Del Duca, A., Rosato, D., Cucchi, L., Ciuti, L., and Porro, V.: The Pyxis project: a sounding rocket developed by Skyward Experimental Rocketry from Politecnico di Milano in collaboration with the Scientific High School “Cigna-Baruffi-Garelli” – Mondovì, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-6422, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-6422, 2022.

In the last decades we have increasingly seen a shift in higher education away from teaching soil science at the undergraduate level as stand-alone program or as part of more traditional Earth sciences programs. Instead, soil science is increasingly embedded in larger interdisciplinary programs. These can be programs within the realm of the natural sciences, e.g. combining soil science and ecology to study ecosystem functioning. Or they may be broader still, and include elements from the social sciences, economics, political science, etc.. Such broad interdisciplinary sustainability programs offer great opportunities, as they enable students to study soil sciences as part of the complex human-nature interactions that underpin the grand challenges of our time. However, teaching soil science in such in the context of an interdisciplinary sustainability program faces important challenges as well. These include finding a proper balance between broad orientation and specialization, and finding the truly interdisciplinary professors to teach the program.

At the University of Amsterdam, in 2006 we embedding our soil science teaching in the interdisciplinary Bachelor program Future Planet Studies (FPS) that includes natural sciences and social sciences components. In my presentation I aim to share some experiences from the evolution of the FPS program over the last 15 years. I will highlight some of our successes, and some of the challenges that we are still struggling with. With this I hope to initiate a discussion about the role of soil science in interdisciplinary programs, and learn from the experience of others.

How to cite: Jansen, B.: Future Planet Studies: embedding soil science in an interdisciplinary sustainability bachelor program, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-910, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-910, 2022.

Complex systems incorporating interconnected social, ecological, and technological components are often the subject of analysis and intervention. Such systems frequently give rise to wicked problems [1-4] – problems that “prove to be highly resistant to resolution through any of the currently existing modes of problem-solving” [2-3]. Such problems require a transdisciplinary approach – one where multiple perspectives and realities can inform decisions for intervening in the system. This is well understood in many policy-relevant fields. Inquiry into climate change impacts or water policy, for example, can only proceed effectively with some understanding of the “partiality, plurality and provisionality of knowing” [5]. In working with these types of complex systems, transdisciplinary teams capable of effectively engaging with many worldviews and ways of creating knowledge [2] are increasingly seen as essential for carrying out impactful research-based work. Despite the increasing importance of transdisciplinary practice, educational programs designed to help students effectively carry out this work remain rare, and researchers engaging in this kind of practice often must navigate institutional structures designed to reinforce rather than permeate boundaries between disciplines.

The School of Cybernetics at the Australian National University is one of an increasing number of institutions where transdisciplinary practice is a norm rather than an exception. Staff have been recruited from diverse scholarly and professional backgrounds and career trajectories, and activities encourage engagement in transdisciplinary inquiry. This is in service of the central mission of the School: to identify and develop the knowledges and practices required to take AI-enabled cyber-physical systems safely, responsibly and sustainably to scale in the world.  Experimental transdisciplinary masters and PhD programs have been convened since 2019 to help achieve this mission.

In this presentation, we will draw from the authors’ collective experience as supervisors, instructors, and students in these and other programs to provide guidance on designing and delivering effective transdisciplinary educational programs for higher degree research students. We will address the following aspects of postgraduate education: the student selection process, in which careful cohort selection is essential for identifying students likely to effectively engage in transdisciplinary work; our experience using formal and informal hands-on training in a range of research and relationship-management skills to support transdisciplinary practice; institutional structures and scaffolding to support transdisciplinary cultures and incentives; and ways of supporting students and supervisors to thrive through the creation of diverse and respectful research communities of practice that support collective learning.

[1] C. Andersson and P. Törnberg, Futures, 95, 118–138 (2018).

[2] V.A. Brown, Collective Inquiry and Its Wicked Problems, in Tackling Wicked Problems: Through the Transdisciplinary Imagination, edited by J.A. Harris et al., (Earthscan, New York, Oxon, 2010) pp. 61-83.

[3] H. Rittel and M. Webber, Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155-169 (1973).

[4] J. Mingers, and J. Rosenhead, Rational analysis for a problematic world revisited, Vol. 1 (John Wiley and Sons Ltd. Chichester UK, 2001).

[5] J.Y. Russell, A Philosophical Framework for an Open and Critical Transdisciplinary Inquiry, in Tackling Wicked Problems: Through the Transdisciplinary Imagination, edited by J.A. Harris et al., (Earthscan, New York, Oxon, 2010) pp. 31-60.

How to cite: Williams, E., Berman, G., Reid, K., Daniell, K., and Zafiroglu, A.: Complex systems and interconnected worlds: Crafting transdisciplinary higher degree research programs in an Australian context, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-4089, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-4089, 2022.