LEWISTON, Idaho – Dr. Scott Linneman, Professor of Geology and Science Education at Western Washington University (WWU) in Bellingham, will offer two presentations in the LC Valley on Friday, September 19.
Sponsored by the Lewis-Clark State College Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Linneman’s first talk is “How Would We Change STEM Education If We Knew How People Learn?” STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The talk takes place at 3:30 p.m. in Meriwether Lewis Hall, Room 100, on the LCSC Campus and features an interactive presentation that will demonstrate how research on learning is re-shaping how science K-20 is taught.
The second talk - "Lessons Learned from the Tragic 22 March 2014 Oso, WA Landslide" – takes place at 5:30 p.m. at Basalt Cellars, 906 Port Drive, in Clarkston. In a well-illustrated presentation, Dr. Linneman will describe what is known (and isn’t known) about what happened at Oso, why it happened, and what could be done to prevent future such tragedies.
The talks are free and open to the public.
Scott Linneman’s academic background includes a B.A. from Carleton College in Minnesota and a Ph.D. from the University of Wyoming. His research has spanned the fields of igneous petrology and volcanology (in the Cascades, Central America, and Turkey) and geomorphology (large slow landslides). He is currently employing terrestrial laser scanning and time-lapse photography of landscapes to study undergraduate learning about geologic rates.
Also certified as a middle/high school science teacher, he served as a Senior Fulbright Fellow working on teacher preparation at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa. He has directed a National Science Foundation (NSF) GK-12 Catalysts for Reform Project at WWU and was co-principal investigator for WWU’s North Cascades and Olympics Science Partnership, an NSF Math-Science Partnership. Dr. Linneman served on the executive committees for the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (as president), the Washington Science Teachers Association, and the NSF MARGINS Steering Committee. He is a regular reviewer and panelist for NSF. He taught for 10 years at Lewis-Clark State College, where he was awarded the Arts and Sciences Teaching Award and the Talkington Teaching Award. Since arriving at WWU in 2000, he has served on 25 M.S. thesis committees. In 2011 Dr. Linneman was named the Higher Education Science Teacher of the Year for Washington by the Washington Science Teachers Association. In 2013 he was selected as the Washington Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
For more information about the talks, please contact Dr. Heather Henson-Ramsey, Chair, LCSC Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, at hlhensonramsey@lcsc.edu or 208.792.2295.