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Students’ Final Projects: An Opportunity to Link Research and Teaching

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Geoscience Research and Education

Part of the book series: Innovations in Science Education and Technology ((ISET,volume 20))

Abstract

The final project that students have to complete before finishing their degree in the new adapted system to Bologna in Spain is an opportunity to link research and teaching. This experience has been ongoing for several years now within our research group and the engineering geology course. These studies had a final project in the non-adapted system, and this will serve as experience for the system to come. Teaching staff must be aware of the current lack of independence that students have when working on their own and how the new system will attempt to remedy this failure by working the different competencies. The involvement of students in research groups has shown that they feel more confident if their opinion is taken into account when they are carrying out a research project, leading them to feel gratified if they appear in the authorship of papers and abstracts concerning their work presented at international congress. This helps to increase their motivation as professionals in the last stages of their university studies.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the following funding sources that made it possible for us to carry out the final projects that illustrate our experience to date: SA110A09, CGL2010-18579/BTE and GLOGE 2010-1-ES1-ERA10-22325. They also thank the commitment of the students cited and all the students who year after year wish to become involved in our group for the completion of their final project. Nic Skinner helped us in arranging the English version. Two anonymous reviewers contributed with their suggestions to the improvement of a previous version.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    Dolores Pereira

  2. IMAR, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Luis Neves

Authors
  1. Dolores Pereira
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  2. Luis Neves
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dolores Pereira .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom

    Vincent C. H. Tong

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Pereira, D., Neves, L. (2014). Students’ Final Projects: An Opportunity to Link Research and Teaching. In: Tong, V. (eds) Geoscience Research and Education. Innovations in Science Education and Technology, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6946-5_18

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