Rick Oches

Natural & Applied Sciences

Bentley University

Eric (Rick) Oches is Dean of Arts & Sciences and Professor of Geology and Environmental Sciences at Bentley University. My teaching and research interests focus on environmental sustainability and public policy to foster a more sustainable future in the context of population growth, increasing natural resource consumption, environmental degradation, and global climate change. Over the last few years, my academic interests increasingly center on Earth and environmental science education for non-STEM students to foster improved science literacy. In collaboration with colleagues at Bentley University, Northern Illinois University and Wittenberg University, as well as partnerships with SERC and Oregon State Universtiy, we were recently awarded a 5-year NSF-IUSE ICT grant, Collaborative Research: Broadening the Fusion of STEM and Business Curricula in Undergraduate Sustainability Education, with the goal to enhance students’ abilities to address “wicked problems” in sustainability while developing faculty cultures of collaborative, transdisciplinary curriculum design. (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1914906&HistoricalAwards=false)

Workshop Leader, Webinar Participant, Website Contributor

Website Content Contributions

Course Modules (6), Conference Presentations (4), Other Contributions (2)

Course Modules (6)

Unit 1: Overview of Earth's Climate System part of Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts
Unit 1 serves as an introduction to Earth's climate system components. After exploring climate data, students are introduced to the natural processes responsible for global climate and how specific variables ...

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Unit 2: Communicating Climate 1: The Science of Climate Change part of Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts
Using climate data, students develop a graph and present the results in a blog, emphasizing effective scientific communication. Students work individually or in teams to graph, describe, and explain the data sets ...

Unit 4: Read and Analyze a Short Story part of Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts
Building on the work they did in Unit 3, students will perform an "ecocritical" rhetorical reading (the theoretical lens for examining the way that literary texts engage with climate and climate issues) ...

Unit 3: Communicating Climate 2: Literary Representations of Climate Change part of Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts
After being introduced to scientific communication in Unit 2, students will continue by exploring different literary representations of climate change during this unit. Students will analyze various kinds of ...

Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts part of Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts
This module addresses both aspects of climate literacy: understanding of climate science through data analysis and interpretation, and understanding of literary tools and techniques through which climate science is ...

Unit 5: Synthesis: Literary Representation of a Grand Societal Challenge part of Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts
In the final unit of the module, students will synthesize their understanding of climate science and modes of communication. Students are assigned to groups and given a climate change issue that they will use to ...

Conference Presentations (4)

A Curricular Approach to Facilitating Transdisciplinary Thinking about Sustainability part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2023:Program:Poster Sessions:Friday Poster Session
Addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development goals requires educating a citizenry who can undertake the wicked problems of sustainability from multiple disciplinary perspectives. It requires curricular ...

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Assessing Student Transdisciplinary Thinking about Sustainability through Wicked Problems part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2022:Program:Oral Sessions:Monday Oral Session A
To address the wicked problems of sustainability in a global economy, students need instruction that drives them to use systems thinking and integrate ideas from across multiple disciplines. The NSF-funded ...

Cli-fi: Teaching climate change using literature part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2016:Program:Poster Sessions:Thursday
As part of the InTeGrate program (SERC) at Carleton College, we developed a two-week module utilizing cli-fi (climate science present in fictional literature) and related climate data. Given the interdisciplinary ...

Toward Reciprocal Integration: Fusing STEM, Liberal Arts and Business Curricula in Undergraduate Sustainability Education part of Rendezvous 2015:Program:Abstracts
While a scientifically and technologically literate citizenry is essential to meet the challenges of sustainability and ensure U.S. economic competitiveness, a strong STEM workforce alone is not sufficient to ...

Other Contributions (2)

A New Model for Transdisciplinary Curriculum Development in Higher Education Using the Wicked Problems of Sustainability part of Transforming Institutions Conference 2023:Program:Presentations:Session H
A scientifically literate citizenry is essential to meet the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and ensure that the U.S. remains economically competitive in an increasingly resource-constrained society. Yet neither ...

Teaching Sustainability and the Environment Within and Across Disciplines part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2016:Program:Morning Workshops:Sustainability
Sustainability challenges are often "wicked problems" that require a transdisciplinary approach to adequately define and understand. As such, teaching sustainability requires faculty to teach outside of ...

Communities

Member of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers
Northeastern Section

Earth Educators Rendezvous 2016
July 2016 Earth Educators Rendezvous 2015
July 2015 Teach the Earth
Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts Interest Group
NAGT All

Workshop Leader

Teaching Sustainability and the Environment within and across disciplines
July 2016 InTeGrate Sustainability Courses Workshop July 2012
July 2012

Workshop Participant

Depts & Programs - Rendezvous15
July 2015

Webinar Participant

ITG Institutional Change 2016 webinar
May 2016 Career Development Feb 2013 webinar (Intro Geo Labs)
February 2013