This project aimed to enhance the flexibility, quality and efficiency of learning and delivery for related distance education (DE) and face-to-face (f2f) courses. The approach was to apply current DE best practices to f2f courses, adapt f2f best practices for use online, and introduce new resources and pedagogies that work in both settings.

In ATSC 113 Applied Meteorology (Weather for Sailing, Flying, and Snow Sports), we will use online narratives to create weekly scenarios of deteriorating weather conditions. Each student plays a different role (skipper, passenger, regulator, weather briefer) in their group and is given different information (sailboat characteristics, distractors, warning issuance, atmospheric behaviour). Group members succeed by working together to determine the right questions to ask. This flipped (inquiry-based learning) motivates their access of online resources outside of class.

This three-year project will improve students’ abilities to apply scientific knowledge, data and reasoning to personal and societal decisions; a primary educational goal for a scientifically literate society. In EOSC114, the Catastrophic Earth, taught annually to over 2000 face to face (f2f) and distance education (DE) students, we will re-configure existing content within a natural hazards framework and build corresponding learning activities and assessments for both the f2f and DE settings.

The Environmental Science (ENSC) core courses (ENVR 200, 300, 400) culminate in a two-term community-based team project in which students collaborate, design, and undertake an authentic research project. We propose a new video-prompted activity for ENVR 200 to present locally relevant and persistent case studies in environmental science (climate change and food production) including candid community perspectives presented in context to highlight the complexity of the issue.

By developing introductory online lessons for GIS in parallel with new course-specific GIS-based lab exercises, this project will ensure that all students in EOAS are given a level foundation in GIS skills in the context of applied earth science.