UCalgary science students embark on space mission to Earth

Commander Annie stands at the front of a lecture theatre and talks about the mission to Earth.

“In Mission 1, we flew across the Pacific Ocean when we were travelling from Mount Fuji back to Lituya Bay,” she tells the class. “In the process, we observed something spectacular. What was it?”

“A volcano,” the students respond.

“It was a volcano, and it was amazing,” continues the commander, aka Dr. Annie Quinney, PhD, an associate professor with the Department of Earth, Energy and Environment in the Faculty of Science. “CASA is super interested in learning more about how these things erupt, so CASA – for Mission 3 – is going to be sending us to this volcano. What have we named this volcano?”

“Hawaii,” a few students say.

CASA stands for the Co-operative Alien Space Agency – and the students are aliens who are visiting Earth from a faraway planet.

The ERTH 210 class, named Welcome to Earth, teaches first-year students about geology – how the Earth works, its structure and composition.

In the first two weeks of the class, the aliens travelled across the universe and looked for a flat spot to land by learning about topographic maps and Lidar data.

“We gave them six options: Mount Fuji, which was not so great to land on; Canyonlands in Utah; Meteor Crater in Arizona; Lituya Bay in Alaska, Scablands in Washington, and Mount Yamnuska,” Quinney says in an interview after a class. “Each group had a different area to investigate, and they had to find the best spot to land their spacecraft.”

The students have 3D models printed from real data to work on, complete with boxes that fit over the models that serve as cloud cover and a rod that they insert into the grid pattern in the box to take two-way travel measurements that they convert into elevation and draw a map.

“It’s involved,” she says.

In Mission 2, the aliens jumped out of their spaceships and collected rocks to analyse, before they were headed to Hawaii on Mission 3.

“I have a 25-foot-long map,” says Quinney. “They are going to measure distances from Kilauea (the volcano) to all the landforms. They are going to look at ages across the ridge, they are going to look at morphology across the ridge, where the extinct versus active volcanos are.

“Ultimately, in this course, we are trying to piece together the story of plate tectonics, so that will be the final reveal at the end. Right now, we are just collecting data. We don’t necessarily know what it means.”

There are 10 missions to unravel the mysteries of the planet – from volcanoes and mountains to meteorites and fossils.

Quinney says it’s a different way to teach.

“We have so much information and usually we just data dump on the students, and there are right and wrong answers,” she says. “In this course, it’s discovery based. Making mistakes is part of the process.”

For Quinney, it’s been a lot to wrap her head around as she built the course.

“You’re revealing bits of information, but you don’t want to give the whole story away,” she says. “You want them to build it, which is really the scientific method.”

The students in one class earlier this fall were incredibly engaged, with one noting it’s his best class.

Quinney says she has never witnessed engagement as she does in Welcome to Earth.

“One of the things we talked about when we were building the curriculum is how do we create field-based experiences in the lab to give students the opportunity to discover rather than us just transmitting information,” she explains. “I think that’s what started me on the path of finding a narrative.”

The course, formerly Geology 201 and Geology 202, is part of a curricula update in the newly named Department of Earth, Energy and Environment, which was the Department of Geoscience.

The transformation last year has broadened the department’s focus, which is also adding degree programs focused on energy and environmental sciences.

Quinney says the update is working to reduce barriers to entry and give students more flexibility. 

“Our students aren’t ending up in the jobs they used to,” she explains. “The new curriculum gives them a strong foundation and the freedom to choose the courses that will make them successful.”