Teaching Information Literacy While Teaching About the Polar Regions

Type of Presentation

Individual paper/presentation (20 minute presentation)

Target Audience

Higher Education

Location

Room 212

Proposal

See presentation description.

Presentation Description

In academic year 2008-2009, Georgia Southern University started a new seminar course for all incoming freshmen. Faculty from any discipline could propose to teach a section on a topic of their choice; thus a wide variety of topics were offered. The aim was to teach freshmen some basic college skills while offering them a taste of academic inquiry into a topic. One of the stated aims of the course was to train students in information literacy skills. I taught a section on the polar regions, viewed from a variety of different perspectives - the climate, the ecology, the land and sea, the plants, the animals, the people, history, exploration, governance, the regions' importance for the world as a whole, and their symbolic meanings in the human psyche. I will be in the process of teaching this course for a second time when I give this presentation. I will discuss my experiences using the polar regions as a medium for teaching information literacy. After all, where else could it be more important to know how to find accurate and reliable information and put it to use, than in an environment so harsh that a hairs' breadth error could mean the difference between survival and death! And, even though most of us will never go there, we need to be able to find and assess information about how what is happening there will affect all the rest of us.

Keywords

Information literacy, First-year courses, Polar regions

Publication Type and Release Option

Presentation (Open Access)

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Sep 26th, 9:45 AM Sep 26th, 10:45 AM

Teaching Information Literacy While Teaching About the Polar Regions

Room 212

See presentation description.