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
Abstract
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)
Recommended Citation
Ziegler, Rebecca, "Teaching Information Literacy While Teaching About the Polar Regions" (2009). Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy. 10.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gaintlit/2009/2009/10
Teaching Information Literacy While Teaching About the Polar Regions
Room 212
See presentation description.