Inverted approach to teach inversion

Abstract

Inversion is one of the most important weather phenomena that determines air quality and is typically covered in courses concerning air pollution. Anecdotal evidence indicates that following textbook readings and lectures, students generally express misconceptions about this topic. Adding active learning to the classroom has been advocated amongst the best practices for higher education, with physical in-class demonstrations being especially effective for engineering education. The study explores the impact of adding a laboratory demonstration, centered on creating an artificial inversion layer (with dry ice, smoke bombs, and bubble machine), to improve students' conceptual understanding of inversion and air quality problems. The expected student outcomes from the activity are as follows: (1) Define inversion as a natural and important meteorological phenomenon; (2) Articulate a deeper understanding of inversion mechanics; and (3) Relate inversion with high ground level air pollutant concentrations. A pre-activity quiz of the students' understanding, from their reading, was used to establish a baseline. The same quiz was delivered as a post-activity quiz, following the demonstration. We compared the results from the pre-activity quiz scores with the post-activity quiz scores. The results indicated an improvement in students' understanding of inversion and air quality. The correct responses, to the question on inversion definition, increased by 45%. Students demonstrated improved understanding on the concept of mixing in stable air; the number of correct responses increased by 29%. Activity specific survey questions revealed that the average rating for “This demo was useful in promoting my learning of inversion” was 4.61±0.599, and for “This demo activity was a good use of class time” was 4.71±0.572 out of 5 scale. Based on the results, we believe that the demonstration was effective for improving students' conceptual understanding of inversion and air quality. Active learning, such as an in-classroom demonstration, can improve the students' ability to understand complex concepts. Adding a visual component to an abstract concept removes misconceptions.