Telling Their Story: Pre-Service Teachers Reflect on an Immersive Field Geology Course

Pre-service science teachers need to be put into situations where their existing conceptions of science, teaching, and learning are challenged in immersive, inquiry-based learning environments, before being asked to create similar spaces in their own classrooms. One approach to meeting this objective is through the use of field-based geoscience courses designed for preservice teachers and education majors. The benefits that these experiences provide for preservice teachers self-efficacy, understanding of the nature of science, and science content knowledge are well documented. This geoscience field course is tailored for preservice elementary students, secondary science students and in-service teachers. The impact the experience had on participating students ideas about science and teaching. Qualitative methods including In-Vivo coding of transcripts from informal interviews with participants. Findings suggest that the field geology course challenged preservice teachers existing epistemologies of science, as they demonstrated an understanding of the empirical, creative, and tentative aspects of scientific knowledge.