Assessment Strategies for Data Intensive, Upper Division Earth Science Course on Global Change

There is a particular value in developing tools for assessing the "scientific operation" we attune to doing science. All too often, we instruct our students to gain scientific knowledge through a series of contrived labs, and even subject a few of them to performance assessments commonly known as "senior projects." If we are to begin using more performance related activities in our geoscience courses, we need evaluation and assessment methods rich enough to provide reliable information for course improvement. Scientists know that at the heart of science is the struggle with understanding data - learning how to make higher order data-based decisions that go beyond the ability to construct graphical representations. We will present an evaluation plan that evaluates a student's ability to conduct scientific operation focused upon three sub-categories, all of which are interdependent: scientific knowledge; scientific communication; and scientific data user ability. We will also present preliminary results from a focused study.