Explanations and understandings
Geoscience combines a wide range of concepts, models and insights from chemistry, physics, astronomy and biology, and applies them to the Earth system. Introductory geoscience courses in higher education therefore tend to cover a lot of ground. To accomplish this, instruction of first-year geoscience students typically make use of non-formal explanations such as textual descriptions, simplified examples, and analogies rather than mathematical descriptions.
The Explanations and Understandings-project investigates how such non-formal explanations are used to introduce geoscientific ideas, how they can be (mis)understood by students, and how teachers can distinguish productive from unproductive or counterproductive non-formal explanations when planning and evaluating instruction.
Publications
Dunnett & Lundmark (2026) Evaluating explanations of scientific concepts using image schemata
Dunnett, Barnes & Lundmark (2026) Analogy use in textbook introductions to isostasy: Presentations, perceptions and physics
Dunnett & Lundmark (2024) The complexities of moving topics between disciplines: the case of buoyancy and isostasy.
Additional publications
Glessmer, Daae, Thoni, Lundmark, Dunnett & Herde (2026). Creating Grassroots Communities of Practice to Discuss Teaching.
Dunnett, Lundmark, Glessmer, Daae & Sodemann (2026). Impacts of three discipline-specific fora for discussing teaching and learning.
Andersen et al. (2025). Co-Creation in Practice: Redesigning a Geoscience Bachelor Course.
Project
iEarth project: The complexities of moving topics between disciplines: the case of buoyancy and isostasy.
Contact Kirsty Dunnett for more information.
Kirsty Dunnett, post-doc at the Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo.
This project was supported by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir) through iEarth“ Centre for Integrated Earth System Science Education.