Abstract:

During the last years a crisis of professional vocation affecting the students of geosciences has been observed at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU. As a consequence, the first course is characterized by fairly poor academic results, together with a high level of drop-outs. However, after the successful completion of that initial course, the results change positively. On this basis, and in order to reinforce the motivation of the university students at the first course, an academic project has been designed.

The first task of this project has been to develop a survey with the aim of finding out the interests of the new learners as well as the reasons that led them to enrol in the Geology Degree. Assessment of the results has indicated the most attractive areas of interest for the students. According to this, a number of thematic talks conducted by professional geologists active in those fields has been organized (Environmental Geology, Geological Research, Geodiversity). In relation to these talks different “geological challenges” have been proposed to the students. The goal of these challenges is to encourage them to learn actively through the autonomous search of information and to promote self reflective attitudes towards geological knowledge. Finally, a second survey has been designed in order to obtain information about the evolution of the learning engagement of the students after their participation in these activities, and on the different factors that may prevent their integration in the university. With all this, here we present the first results obtained in this project. Even though these are just preliminary conclusions, they show an overall strengthening in the interest of the students of the first course of the Degree in Geology for the science they have chosen.

Keywords:

UPV/EHU, Geology, Students, Vocational reinforcement.