Hi! My name is Eliza Richardson and we are going to have a great semester learning to program a little bit, using that knowledge to construct some animations or compositions detailing our mental models of Earth science big ideas, and discussing some papers where these topics are explored by cognitive psychologists and Earth scientists.
I grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia, earned my bachelor's degree in geology and geophysics at Princeton University and got my PhD in geophysics at MIT. I came to Penn State in 2002.
I've been the lead faculty member for the online Master of Education in Earth Sciences degree program since 2008 and since that time I hope I've at least given back a little of the great teaching and mentoring I received on my path to becoming a scientist.
Here's what I like:
- baseball on the radio
- homebrewing
- summer
- people who think
Here's what I could do without:
- cottage cheese
- those really aggressive yellow jackets that build nests in the ground so when your kids walk over them they get stung multiple times
- people who don't give you a little wave when you slow down to let them cross the street