I recently returned from the Symposium for the Application of Geophysics to Environmental and Engineering Problems (SAGEEP 2026) held in Pittsburgh, PA March 15-19, where I delivered the keynote address: From Rock Hammers to Python Notebooks: A SWOT Analysis of Geoscience Education. Below is a condensed version. A longer version will be published in the next issue of FastTIMES. I’ll add a link here when the article comes out.
This was my first SAGEEP after a hiatus of about five years while I worked in the Temple University administration as Director of General Education. Now that I’m back in the faculty, it was great to catch up with colleagues and hear about the latest progress in near-surface geophysics.
From Rock Hammers to Python Notebooks: A SWOT Analysis of Geoscience Education
By Dr. Jonathan Nyquist, Professor of Geophysics, Temple University
After nearly four decades in geoscience education, I’ve developed what I call a “cheerful pessimist” worldview — the glass looks two-thirds empty, but a SWOT analysis forces you to think about how to fill it.
The Threats
Federal geoscience funding is shrinking. A decade ago roughly a third of NSF Geosciences proposals were funded; today it’s closer to a quarter. Climate research has become politically sensitive — I know of a colleague told her stormwater proposal could be funded only if she removed all references to climate change. And geology enrollments are sliding nationwide. At Temple, our majors held steady around 140 until 2020 but have been declining since.
Meanwhile, the rise of contingent faculty has quietly reshaped who teaches college courses. Tenured faculty are now a minority at most U.S. institutions, and the pressure on short-term instructors to keep evaluations high contributes to grade inflation — the median undergraduate grade is now an A.
Math preparation has cratered too. Since the pandemic, the share of incoming Temple science students needing remedial math before calculus has jumped from under 10 percent to over 40 percent.
The AI Problem
Of every disruption I’ve witnessed in higher education, AI is the most concerning. Students aren’t just looking up answers — they’re outsourcing the thinking itself. I ran colleagues’ homework and quiz questions through ChatGPT and it handled most of them competently, diagrams included. Detection tools catch only about 40 percent of AI-generated work, dropping to 20 percent with minimal student effort. It’s a losing arms race.
But the Glass Isn’t Empty
Geoscience was interdisciplinary before it was fashionable. Our small departments foster real mentorship. Field-based education remains one of STEM’s most powerful experiential learning models — at Temple we’ve adapted by building urban field investigations around stormwater, lead contamination in soil, and PFAS right in Philadelphia.
The employment outlook is strong, retirements are creating openings, and many geoscience careers involve the kind of messy, place-based judgment that AI can’t replicate. AI can’t smell hydrogen sulfide or assess slope stability in the rain. Used wisely, AI is a force multiplier, not a replacement for geoscientists.
A Call to Action
The Environmental and Engineering Geophysicsal Society (EEGS) sits at the intersection of industry and education, and academia needs industry’s help now more than ever. Teach a community college course. Give a seminar. Join an department advisory board. Create an internship. I still see the glass as two-thirds empty — but I’m counting on all of you to help fill it.
Adapted from a keynote address to the Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society.